It is a very well-established fact that cancer is a multifactorial disease involving innumerable complex cellular signaling pathways (). These pathways are mainly regulated by oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes (). Recent studies show that microRNAs (miRNAs) and associated RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC) also play a major role in oncogenesis (; ; ). Infectious diseases are serious health disorders, and they are mainly caused by various unicellular or multicellular organisms such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi (; ). Infectious human viruses like human papillomavirus (HPV) cause cervical cancer; Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) is known to cause nasopharyngeal cancer and Burkitt lymphoma. Liver-associated human viruses like hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) cause hepatitis and induce hepatocellular carcinoma (). Bacteria, namely, Helicobacter pylori, are also known to cause gastric cancer (). Some of the fungal secondary metabolites and toxic chemicals are known to trigger mutations and initiate cancer growth and development (). Fungal origin environmental toxins like aflatoxin and ochratoxin are known carcinogens and activate inflammation and carcinogenesis (; ) (). Inflammation is a major contributor and a well-known hallmark of almost all of the infectious diseases and carcinogenesis. Inflammatory cytokines like tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) and transcription factor nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) act as master regulators of inflammation-associated infectious diseases and cancer (; ). Therefore, although distinct, there exists a strong congruity between cancer and infectious diseases. This special collection of original research and review articles gave us new insights on the microorganism-associated cancer development and progression and also beneficial effects of fungal secondary metabolites in cancer therapeutics.
This Research Topic contains a study by Li et al. which showed that the reactivation of cytomegalovirus (CMV) or EBV is closely related to poor hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) outcomes. CMV is strongly correlated with different types of cancer initiation, including breast, colon, prostate, and ovarian cancer. EBV infection also increases a person’s susceptibility to certain types of cancer such as nasopharyngeal cancer, Burkitt lymphoma, and Hodgkin lymphoma. This retrospective study strongly interprets the dangerous effects of these two viruses even in patients who have undergone HSCT.
The ubiquitin proteasome pathways are involved in protein degradation and recycling; they also aid in amino acid homeostasis (). The review article by Ignatz-Hoover et al. revealed that the proteasome acts as a highly promising appropriate therapeutic target to combat infectious diseases and different types of cancers. Dolatabadi et al. showed the presence of intracellular highly adherent-invasive Escherichia coli among different stages of the disease, family background, and history in treated colorectal cancer patients in Iran. Although E. coli is a harmless bacterium and is an important part of a healthy human gut microbiota, this study clearly shows the pathogenic nature of a few strains of E. coli in infectious diseases and cancers. A study by Varli et al. showed that acetonic extract and secondary metabolites from endolichenic fungus (Nemania sp. EL006872) exhibited immune checkpoint inhibitory activity especially in lung cancer cells. This study also shows the potential importance of fungal secondary metabolites, and they can be used as promising therapeutic molecules in cancer therapy. This article indirectly shows that these microbial metabolites not only cause inflammation and cancer but also carry importance in cancer immunotherapy. Another study by Wang et al. also showed how fucoxanthin prevents breast cancer growth and metastasis by stopping circulating tumor cell adhesion and transendothelial migration. This study clearly shows the anticancer potential of fucoxanthin in which it inhibited the most important hallmarks of breast cancer by suppressing circulating tumor cell adhesion and transendothelial migration. Interestingly, this fucoxanthin is a xanthophyll carotenoid most abundantly present in microorganisms like macroalgae and multicellular organisms like brown seaweeds.
All of these elegant studies clearly show the existence of congruities between cancer and infectious diseases. Furthermore, additional experimental evidence and studies give more knowledge to understand these distinct yet analogous fields.
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Author contributions
All authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectual contribution to the work and approved it for publication.
Acknowledgments
PS acknowledges JSS Medical College, JSS AHER, Mysore, India and also Department of Biotechnology, Government of India.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construeds as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher’s note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
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Summary
Keywords
cancer, infectious diseases, bacteria, viruses, inflammation
Citation
Thirunavukkarasu S and Santhekadur PK (2022) Editorial: Congruities between cancer and infectious diseases: Lessons to be learned from these distinct yet analogous fields. Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol. 12:1072022. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2022.1072022
Received
17 October 2022
Accepted
18 November 2022
Published
07 December 2022
Volume
12 - 2022
Edited and reviewed by
Nahed Ismail, University of Illinois at Chicago, United States
Updates
Copyright
© 2022 Thirunavukkarasu and Santhekadur.
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Prasanna K. Santhekadur, prasannakumars@jssuni.edu.in
This article was submitted to Clinical Microbiology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology
Disclaimer
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.