Developing Gut-stable Antibody Mimetics to Enhance Chicken Health

抗体是一种非常强大的治疗类，这要归功于它们对目标分子的高特异性。然而，抗体是蛋白质，在农业中没有广泛应用，因为它们在胃肠道中被迅速消化。这意味着它们必须被注射，这对于农业应用来说通常是非常昂贵的。牛津大学的Howarth小组基于大豆中的胰蛋白酶抑制蛋白SBTI开发了一种新的抗体模拟物。对这种蛋白质进行工程改造可以产生类似抗体的分子，称为胃小体，在肠道的酸性和消化条件下高度稳定。畜牧业正面临越来越大的压力，要求减少对抗生素的依赖，但仍然存在许多传染性细菌和寄生虫疾病，每年造成数十亿英镑的经济损失。该项目将使用胃体技术来定位与鸡肠道细菌和寄生虫感染有关的信号分子。这将为家禽业提供新的预防和治疗方法，并开发一种在动物和人类肠道健康方面有更广泛应用的技术。

Antibodies are an immensely powerful therapeutic class thanks to their high-specificity for target molecules. However, antibodies are proteins and are not widely used in agriculture because they are rapidly digested in the gastrointestinal tract. This means that they have to be injected which is usually prohibitively expensive for agricultural applications. The Howarth group, at the University of Oxford, have developed a new antibody mimic, based on the trypsin inhibitor protein, SBTI, from soybeans. Engineering this protein has allowed the creation of antibody-like molecules, termed gastrobodies, which are highly stable in the acidic and digestive conditions of the gut. The livestock industry is coming under increasing pressure to reduce its reliance on antibiotics but there remain many infectious bacterial and parasitic diseases that cause billions of pounds worth of economic damage every year. This project will use the gastrobody technology to target signalling molecules involved in bacterial and parasitic infection of the chicken gut. This will provide novel prophylactic and curative treatments for the poultry industry as well as developing a technology which has wider applications across animal and human gut health.