Manuscript on Human “GUSome” Published by Cell Press

July 2017

The journal Structure (Cell Press) published “An Atlas of β-Glucuronidases in the Human Intestinal Microbiome” based on research conducted by Symberix’s scientific founder, Professor Matthew Redinbo, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The article describes a comprehensive roadmap of the GUSome, which refers to a collection of nearly 300 unique and structurally diverse bacterial β-glucuronidase (GUS) enzymes that are expressed in the human gut microbiome. In 2010, Dr. Rebindo published an article in Science showing for the first time the feasibility of therapeutically targeting the microbiome with small-molecule drugs.  This completely new therapeutic concept was demonstrated with small-molecule inhibitors that selectively and non-lethally inhibit E. coli GUS, a bacterial enzyme that triggers severe, delayed diarrhea associated with the cancer drug irinotecan.  The article in Structure shows that E. coli GUS is only one of many druggable GUS targets that make up the GUSome platform.

The GUSome paper can be found at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28578872