The human gut microbiota plays a critical role in maintaining healthy gastrointestinal function and other physiological processes, including immune regulation, maintenance of homeostasis, and host health. Antibiotics are the most prescribed drugs in clinics because of their ability to kill disease-causing bacteria. However, their non-selective killing action also causes a decrease in the healthy microbiome, which is known as ‘dysbiosis’. To protect probiotics from these adverse effects, Dr.Zhang Yaoyao and Pro.Guo Junling from Sichuan University, as well as other colleagues, have developed a method to coat probiotics, which consists of an adhesive material (named ‘probiotic nanoarmor’) derived from a plant extract component. The nanoarmor protects a series of probiotics from antibiotics. Multiple interactions between the nanoarmor and antibiotics allow for the effective absorption of antibiotics into the nanoarmor. Armored probiotics have shown the ability to colonize the gastrointestinal tract of the levofloxacin-treated rats, which greatly reduced antibiotic-associated diarrhea (AAD) caused by levofloxacin treatment and ameliorated pro-inflammatory symptoms caused by AAD. This strategy presents a powerful platform and promising live biotherapeutic product (LBP) to improve the efficacy of therapeutic bacteria for the patients who are receiving antibiotics and to avoid the adverse effects of antibiotics in the gastrointestinal tract.

This study has been published by Nature Communications (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29672-z).