Probiotic cream that ramps up heat production could prevent frostbite

Polar explorers and deep-water divers could one day apply a probiotic cream to their skin to ward off frostbite or hypothermia. This optimism comes after scientists genetically engineered bacteria that naturally live on our skin to detect temperature, and produce more heat when needed, for the first time.

“It’s very creative work. You can imagine this cream being the difference between getting frostbite or not,” says Harris Wang at Columbia University in New York, who wasn’t involved in the research. “I can think of many applications – from keeping warm in winter, preventing frostbite during expeditions, to deep-water diving – where generating heat is important.”

Guillermo Nevot Sánchez at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona and his colleagues genetically engineered a strain of the bacterium Cutibacterium acnes, one of the most abundant microbes on healthy skin, to produce twice as much heat as normal. They did this by using CRISPR, a genetic tool, to change levels of a protein called arcC that is involved in generating energy.

The team also used CRISPR to change the expression of heat-sensitive genes in a separate batch of C. acnes. This meant the microbes could detect temperatures above 32°C (90°F), which they flagged via a fluorescent signal.

Together, the findings provide the first proof of concept that skin bacteria could be engineered to produce more heat in response to a temperature change, says Nevot Sánchez. The team now needs to combine these two abilities in the same bacteria, and demonstrate that they can detect a dangerous drop in temperature, not just when it is high.

Nevot Sánchez says the team has conducted experiments, which haven’t yet been published, that show C. acnes strains can survive when mixed into a cream.

“We could develop a probiotic cream that you put over most of the body – before hiking into cold places, for instance – to prevent hypothermia,” says Nevot Sánchez, who presented the research at the Synthetic Biology for Health and Sustainability conference in Hinxton, UK, on 12 March. It could even help people who live in harsh climates and don’t have heating, he says.

But further research is needed to test the extent to which such a cream actually heats up human skin samples in the lab and on mice before testing it on people, says Wang. Engineering ways to kill off the bacteria when desired – by applying a second cream, for instance – will also be crucial to limit potential side effects, such as overheating, says Nevot Sánchez.