Oxford scientists claim to have engineered a protein from flesh-eating bacteria that acts as a molecular 'superglue' and could be used to help detect cancer cells.
"We've turned the tables and put one kind of flesh-eating bacterium to good use," said Mark Howarth, from the University of Oxford, who led the research.
"We have engineered one of its proteins into a molecular superglue that adheres so tightly that the set-up we used to measure the strength actually broke. It resists high and low temperatures, acids and other harsh conditions and seals quickly.
"With this material we can lock proteins together in ways that could underpin better diagnostic tests - for early detection of cancer cells circulating in the blood, for instance," Haworth said in a statement.
Haworth said it may have many uses in research, such as probing how the forces inside cells change the biochemistry and affect health and disease.
His team genetically engineered the glue from a protein, FbaB, that helps Streptococcus pyogenes (S pyogenes) bacteria infect cells.
Streptococcus pyogenes is one of the microbes that can cause the rare necrotising fasciitis, or flesh-eating bacteria syndrome, in which difficult-to-treat infections destroy body tissue.
Researchers split FbaB into two parts, a larger protein and a smaller protein subunit, termed a peptide. They named the small peptide "SpyTag" and the larger protein "SpyCatcher."
The gluing action occurs when SpyTag and SpyCatcher meet. They quickly lock together by forming one of the strongest possible chemical bonds.
SpyCatcher and SpyTag can be attached to the millions of proteins in the human body and other living things, thus gluing proteins together.
Jacob Fierer, a graduate student on the research team, greatly reduced the size of the SpyCatcher part of the technology.
That achievement makes the technology more flexible, enabling scientists to connect proteins into new architectures, he said.
The study was presented at the National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society.
