key: cord-0867602-7ldx54zg
authors: Chen, Ye; Zhang, Shuyi
title: Editorial: Synthetic Live Biotherapeutic Products for Diseases
date: 2022-03-15
journal: Front Mol Biosci
DOI: 10.3389/fmolb.2022.882743
sha: a20e3e85e684a0278e8ad55a27a4672f64b7c893
doc_id: 867602
cord_uid: 7ldx54zg

nan

anti-cancer drugs. It is worth noting that butyrate could improve the antivirus capacity of human (Trompette et al., 2018) , which makes it a special chemical worth further investigating especially in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rather than relying on existing microbiota and molecular parts, with the advances in synthetic biology, we can design and engineer valuable regulatory parts as needed. Li and coauthors employed molecular dynamics simulation and the Molecular Mechanics Generalized Born Surface Area (MM-GB/SA) method to artificially designed transcription factors with different binding affinities (Li et al.) . They focused on LuxR, a bacterial quorum sensing regulator from Vibrio fischeri, which can be engineered to sense environmental signals and control overall microbiota behaviors. In this work, they identified a key residue, isoleucine-46, when modified to F or R, can have different binding affinity to the same substrate 3-oxohexanoyl-homoserine lactone. They implemented the designed transcription factors into genetic circuits in E. coli to detect target bacterial pathogens such as Yersinia pestis. The overall workflow showcased how synthetic biology, especially protein engineering and circuit design, can facilitate microbiota engineering for biotherapeutical applications.

Several excellent reviews were also assembled for our readers in this topic. Zhang and coauthors provided a comprehensive review of the recent advances in understanding mechanisms of microbiomes as well as synthetic biology technologies that can be utilized to prevent, detect, and treat various diseases (Zhang et al.) . Chen and coauthors summarized impacts of the hostmicrobiome interactions on osteomyelitis pathogenesis, covering direct and indirect microbiome-associated osteomyelitis (Chen J. et al.) . Finally, Yang and coauthors reviewed the immune responses of severe COVID-19 in the gastrointestinal microenvironment and the gut-lung axis (Yang et al.) . This review highlighted the potential of using probiotics as an alternative drug to alleviate or even prevent severe COVID-19 outcomes.

We hope the articles and reviews collected in this research topic can show how fascinating this emerging field in the intersection of synthetic biology and microbiota is, and the great therapeutical potentials this field might offer. We want to take this chance to thank all the authors and reviewers for contributing to this special topic issue. As we are starting Volume II, we encourage and welcome more experts from this field to submit their research work to our topic.

Gut Microbiota Regulation of T Cells during Inflammation and Autoimmunity

Engineering Living Therapeutics with Synthetic Biology

Host-microbiota Maladaptation in Colorectal Cancer

Dietary Fiber Confers Protection against Flu by Shaping Ly6c− Patrolling Monocyte Hematopoiesis and CD8+ T Cell Metabolism

Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest

All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.