An anti-ammonia probiotic

Metabolism Hyperammonemia, or excess blood ammonia, is a serious condition that can result in brain damage and death. Kurtz et al. modified the metabolism of a probiotic Escherichia coli strain to overproduce arginine, thereby sequestering some of the ammonia produced by gut bacteria into the amino acid molecules. The engineered strain, called SYNB1020, lowered blood ammonia and increased survival in mouse hyperammonemia models and showed repeat-dose tolerability in nonhuman primates. A phase 1 dose-escalation study in healthy human volunteers resulted in no serious adverse events and indicated that the bacterium was metabolically active in vivo. Sci. Transl. Med. 11 , eaau7975 (2019).