Vitamin A deficiency: A

Permanent Cure By Emory Sabatini

Photo from: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carrots_without_stems.JPG

Vitamin A

Essential nutrient for animal life

Good for immune system and overall vision

Found preformed in fruits and vegetables, or in beta-carotene form in orange organics

Created w/in the body when…

Beta-carotene

Oxygen molecule

2 retinal (vitamin A)molecules

With help from Beta-carotene 15,15’-monooxygenase enzyme

Vitamin A deficiency

Happens when not enough preformed vitamin A or Beta-carotene is obtained through diet, so not enough vitamin is found/produced in the body

Symptoms include: Night blindness

Xerophthalmia

Keratomalacia

Permanent blindness

Death

Deficiency statistics

Is the most common and most deadly (if left untreated) vitamin deficiency in the world

Occurs in one-third of children, half of whom go permanently blind, and has caused fifty-million deaths worldwide

Most common in Southeast Asia and Africa

Xerophthalmia – one’s inability toproduce tears due to vitamin Adeificiency (seen internationally)

Photo from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subconjunctival_hemorrhage

Current treatments

Vitamin supplementation – through vitamin A pills or food fortification (adding of micronutrients to foods) to force the body to absorb the preformed vitamin

Dietary changes – eating foods high in Vitamin A or beta-carotene

The only problem…

Prenatal vitamins, which are high inVitamin A

None of these solutions are permanent or work in a long term setting!

Photo from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenatal_vitamins

New treatment design

Genetically engineered E. coli (bacteria found in the intestine of humans) to consistently produce beta-carotene

The beta-carotene 15,15’-monoxygenase enzyme is produced in the small intestine, so the E. coli would be placed there

Bacteria would thrive in the gut and would nourish the host for much longer than vitamin supplementation pills/foods

Mevalonate Pathway

Is the biosynthesis pathway for beta-carotene (among other molecules), which leads to the production of Vitamin A

The genes that control the process of this pathway would inserted or turned on inside of the E. coli

Vitamin A would be consistently produced inside of the host body!

Photo from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMG-CoA_reductase_pathway

Sensors

Vitamin A sensors and beta-carotene sensors would be present in the bacteria to avoid overdose of certain chemicals

Advantages

This is permanent – the host will probably never have to worry about Vitamin A deficiency for the rest of his/her life So I think………………

The host will only have to use this treatment once in their lifetime – a bottle of these pills could supply several families for the rest of their lives So I think………………

So I think…

While I said this could be permanent and would only have to be taken once…

I don’t know! The bacteria may not live forever in the

gut, but they will thrive longer than vitamin supplementation will keep someone alive

Because of this, the treatment may have to be used periodically in some people

Potential problems

Overdose – while the sensors on the bacteria should be able to control this, overdose is still possible as they may produce to much beta-carotene or Vitamin A

Infection – E. coli are harmless in most situations. But, the bacteria should still be able to be prone to antibiotics in case something goes wrong

Testing

The bacteria would be inserted into the host body.

The host would e monitored closely for overdose

The host would be aloowed to eat foods whenever so long as they do not contain Vitamin A or beta-carotene

Periodically, the host would be feed Vitamin A/beta-carotene rich foods and monitored closely for overdose

Thank you!!!!!