Abstract
The legalization of cannabis in some countries expands its positive application prospects in various fields. In order to reduce the concerns of the negative consequences of cannabis, we construct a valid THC(the main psychoactive substance in cannabis) inspection - degradation system to in the Intestinal commensal bacteria.
Users and beneficiaries
Narcotics agent
Narcotics police often deal with drugs. Our system can help undercover narcotics agents determine if the subjects are consuming cannabis by the color of their feces, assist narcotics officers in detecting disguised drugs, facilitate control of the illegal drug trade, and protect narcotics officers from addiction to cannabis through ingestion.
People reluctant to consume cannabis
Our system can help the general population determine whether they have unwittingly ingested cannabis, and protect them from addiction. For example, consumers who use our product can be aware of cannabis intake and without concerns of cannabis addiction.
Medical user
Cannabis is often used medically as a treatment of certain terminal diseases like cancer and mental illness like depression since it can increase appetite and relieve the pain, etc. For those people who require ingredients like CBD other than THC in medical cannabis, we set up a special E.coli system which isn’t converted CYP2C19 gene, because CYP2C19 will degrade CBD into inactive compound which will destroy the medical function. Gasse et al. (2020) showed that CYP2C9 and CYP2C19 were both involved in the hydroxylation of Δ9-THC to 11-OH-Δ9-THC. Maurer et al. (2006) indicated that the two were isozymes. In this way, we intruduced CYP2C9 andUGT1A3 to the spacial E.coli to service the medical users while keeping the CBD activity. Our product’s advantage is reducing their dependence on drugs.
Advantages
Vital usage
Our system can protect our target people from the addiction to the medical use of cannabis, facilitate control of illegal drug trades and ensure international communication and the medical use of cannabis.
User-friendly
Users can easily take the medication as needed and know whether they have taken in cannabis by the color of their feces without the help of medical institutions.
Vast market
There is no similar anti-addiction product on the market, so our product has a broad market prospect.
Risks and countermeasures
1. Engineered bacteria should be always under our control, in other words, users can stop using our product at any time. So we added arabinose-induced suicide mechanism to achieve this goal.
2.Accidental bacterial leakage can result in environmental pollution. So we introduced the mazF-mazE toxin-antitoxin system and a temperature-controlled suicide switch at 37 °C to the strain to prevent any possible risk.
Future research prospects
As we successfully verify the THC-sensing module and the extracellular secretion of C-phycocyanin, this module can be modified and perfected in future research as a new diagnostic tool. Moreover, the successful expression of these three human-derived enzyme genes in prokaryotic systems, although their functions have not yet been fully validated, can help later researchers.
