Treating diabetes with probiotics

In our first time ever participating in iGEM, our project is to develop a new treatment for diabetes mellitus type 1 (DM1). We want to engineer a Lactococcus lactis strain to live in the human gut and produce an insulin analog that can be absorbed by the intestinal epithelium. The number of DM1 patients and deaths due to DM1 is increasing every year and we want to make those people’s life better: no more several insulin injections in a single day! Our engineered L. lactis will produce a single-chain insulin analog associated with cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) that facilitate the uptake of insulin by the intestinal epithelium. The expression of insulin will occur under a glucose control built using the catabolite repression system of gram-positive bacteria along with regulation by a small RNA. Mouse over the image to learn more!