The team, which includes infection researchers, engineers and bioinformaticians in Southampton and University College London, have used an electrostatic encapsulation technique to make tiny 3D spheres within which human cells are infected with tuberculosis (TB) bacteria to generate conditions that more closely reflect events in patients.
The model allows the researchers to further investigate what happens in a human body when TB develops, with a long term aim of identifying new antibiotic treatments and vaccines. The research was funded by the Medical Research Council and is published in mBio and eLife.
Professor Paul Elkington, who leads the Southampton TB research group, commented: “We believe this is a really exciting development for the field of tuberculosis research. The 3D sphere can be created with a collagen matrix so it is more like a human lung. This produces an environment which allows particular antibiotics that are important in treating patients to kill the infection, which they cannot do in other 2D model systems. This system will help us speed up the process of finding treatments and vaccines for human tuberculosis, an infection that kills 1.8 million people per year.”
Additionally the 3D spheres are able to prolong experiments for up to three weeks, more than four times longer than standard 2D model systems. This gives researchers more information about how the infection develops and the effect of different interventions over time.
The next phase of the research will be in collaboration with the African Health Research Institute in Durban, in a project being funded by an MRC Global Challenges Research Fund Foundation Award worth £350,000. Durban has a very high incidence of TB and ideal laboratory infrastructure to introduce the 3D model to study cells from patients at high risk of tuberculosis.
Professor Elkington added: “We are delighted to extend our research and have the opportunity to combine diverse expertise to develop an advanced laboratory system that can be applied to a wide range on infections, especially the infections that are prevalent in resource-poor countries. We will use our 3D model to integrate engineering and biological approaches with clinical specimens to create an entirely new system of studying infection.”
Dr Al Leslie, of the Africa Health Research Institute, said: "There is a huge amount to be gained from infectious disease biologists and engineers working together, as they push each other out of their comfort zones and force a new perspective on the problem being tackled. This grant is the start of what we hope to be a long-term collaboration that will bring real innovation to our TB research programmes and speed up the pace of discovery to fight this deadly epidemic."
Ends
Notes to editors
1. Paper details: A Bioengineered 3-Dimensional Cell Culture Platform Integrated With Microfluidics to Address Antimicrobial Resistance in Tuberculosis mBioDOI:10.1128/mBio.02073-16
2. Research on the 3D model has also recently been published in Elife:Dissection of the host-pathogen interaction in human tuberculosis using a bioengineered 3-dimensional modelDOI http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.21283https://elifesciences.org/content/6/e21283
3. Image attached shows the 3D spheres infected with TB. Credit University of Southampton
4. The University of Southampton is a leading UK teaching and research institution with a global reputation for leading-edge research and scholarship across a wide range of subjects in engineering, science, social sciences, health and humanities.
With over 24,000 students, over 6000 staff, and an annual turnover in excess of £500 million, the University of Southampton is acknowledged as one of the country's top institutions for engineering, computer science and medicine. We combine academic excellence with an innovative and entrepreneurial approach to research, supporting a culture that engages and challenges students and staff in their pursuit of learning.
The University is also home to a number of world-leading research centres including the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, the Optoelectronics Research Centre, the Institute for Life Sciences, the Web Science Trust and Doctoral training Centre, the Centre for the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, the Southampton Statistical Sciences Research Institute and is a partner of the National Oceanography Centre at the Southampton waterfront campus. www.southampton.ac.uk
For more information
Becky Attwood, Media Relations Officer, University of Southampton, Tel: 02380 593212, Mob: 07342 060429, Email: [email protected]
RSS