Lab-grown Bacteria Cures C. diff-caused Diarrhea

Lab-grown bacteria may someday replace bacteria cultured from feces for treating severe, recurrent diarrhea caused by Clostridioides difficile (C. diff), according to a study in Nature Medicine.

The diarrhea often begins after patients have been treated with antibiotics that disrupt their gut bacteria, allowing C. diff to thrive, Reuters reported.

Patients with multiple recurrences often receive fecal microbiota transplants, which deliver bacteria cultured from healthy donors’ stool to restore a safe balance of intestinal organisms.

In a pilot study, researchers tested a new treatment made from 15 strains of healthy bacteria, originally cultured from donors but later mass-produced in a laboratory.

Eight weeks after treatment, recurrence of C. diff diarrhea was prevented in seven of nine patients who got the lab-grown bacteria and in eight of nine who received standard fecal microbiota, researchers said. In this small pilot study, no treatment-related adverse events occurred.

Researchers said the lab-grown version could be easier to manufacture and standardize than stool-based treatments because carefully selected bacteria would be produced under controlled conditions, though larger studies would be needed to confirm its effects.