Patients with kidney failure commonly require dialysis to remove nitrogenous wastes and to reduce burden to the kidney. Here, we show that a bacterial cocktail orally delivered in animals with kidney injury can metabolize blood nitrogenous waste products before they diffuse through the intestinal mucosal barrier. The microbial cocktail consists of three strains of bacteria isolated from faecal microbiota that metabolize urea and creatinine into amino acids, and is encapsulated in calcium alginate microspheres coated with a polydopamine layer that is selectively permeable to small-molecule nitrogenous wastes. In murine models of acute kidney injury and chronic kidney failure, and in porcine kidney failure models, the encapsulated microbial cocktail significantly reduced urea and creatinine concentrations in blood, and did not lead to any adverse effects.

肾衰竭患者通常需要透析以去除含氮废物并减轻肾脏负担。在这里，我们显示了在肾脏损伤的动物中口服递送的细菌混合物可以在血液中的含氮废物代谢通过肠粘膜屏障之前进行代谢。微生物混合物由从粪便微生物群中分离出来的三种细菌组成，这些细菌将尿素和肌酐代谢成氨基酸，并被封装在藻酸钙微球中，该微球覆盖有聚多巴胺层，该聚多巴胺层可选择性渗透小分子含氮废物。在急性肾损伤和慢性肾功能衰竭的小鼠模型以及猪肾功能衰竭的模型中，封装的微生物混合物显着降低了血液中尿素和肌酐的浓度，