Signed, Sealed, Delivered: A Generalizable Model for Probiotic Delivery and Metabolism in the Gut

As genetic engineering advances, so does the need for quantitative models to inform biological engineering. This is particularly true for the nascent field of synthetic probiotic therapy of the gut microbiome. Gut microbiome health is linked to health of the host organism. Decline in microbiome health is correlated with severe metabolic disorders. However, as far as we know, there are no models that account for ingestion and transfer of a synthetic probiotic as well as its intended metabolic effect. We present here the first model that accounts for such effects. We call our model the bacterial compartment absorption and transit (BCAT) model. It is a generalization of the pharmacokinetic compartment absorption and transit (CAT) model As a specific example, we employ the BCAT model in the context of trimethylaminuria (TMAU), a metabolic disorder characterized by a persistent fishy odor emanating from affected individuals. The BCAT model predicts the dose of probiotic required for adequate medical treatment of TMAU. Moreover, our model is flexible to apply to any metabolic disorder pertaining to the gut microbiome.