Despite the recent advances in cancer targetted therapy and immunotherapy, cancer remains the second most common cause of death worldwide. The current anti-tumor therapeutics face several challenges, including a lack of selectivity and consequent off-target toxicity, difficulties in reaching deep tumor tissue, and emerging drug resistance.
One of the most promising alternative approaches to the current therapies exploits the natural ability of bacteria to colonize and inhibit cell growth. Over the years, several bacteria strains have been tested for cancer treatment, including live bacteria and bacterial-derived compounds.
Using some live obligate or facultative anaerobic bacteria as oncolytic agents has the advantage of selectively targeting and colonizing the tumors and inhibiting tumor growth. Experimental evidence suggests bacterial-based cancer therapies with Salmonella, E. coli, Streptococcus, Bacillus, Bifidobacterium, and Clostridium can inhibit tumor growth and reduce tumor frequency.
Bacterial-derived compounds, such as peptides and toxins, appear to be promising anti-cancer agents. Their main advantages are their small size, simple synthesis, and easily adaptable features. Some examples of natural peptides with assessed anti-cancer activity are bacterial cyclopeptides and Pseudomonas-derived azurin. Bacterial toxins, such as diphtheria toxin, can be used to create immunotoxins, chimeric fusion proteins that target cancer cells and inhibit their proliferation.
Bacteriotherapy has shown remarkable effects and has the potential to revolutionize cancer clinical practice. However, several questions must be addressed, including bacterial toxicity, bacterial interaction with the tumor microenvironment, and DNA instability. This Research Topic aims to highlight the latest advances in primary and translational research in bacteria-based cancer treatment.
We encourage high-quality submissions that focus on, but are not limited to, the following themes:
- molecular mechanisms involved in the anti-cancer activity of bacterial compounds and live bacteria
- novel bacterial-derived molecules with anti-cancer activity
- investigations into bacteria-tumor microenvironment interactions
- evaluation of in vivo toxicity of bacteria and bacterial-derived compounds
- pre-clinical and clinical studies
Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of scope for this section and will not be accepted as part of this Research Topic.
Despite the recent advances in cancer targetted therapy and immunotherapy, cancer remains the second most common cause of death worldwide. The current anti-tumor therapeutics face several challenges, including a lack of selectivity and consequent off-target toxicity, difficulties in reaching deep tumor tissue, and emerging drug resistance.
One of the most promising alternative approaches to the current therapies exploits the natural ability of bacteria to colonize and inhibit cell growth. Over the years, several bacteria strains have been tested for cancer treatment, including live bacteria and bacterial-derived compounds.
Using some live obligate or facultative anaerobic bacteria as oncolytic agents has the advantage of selectively targeting and colonizing the tumors and inhibiting tumor growth. Experimental evidence suggests bacterial-based cancer therapies with Salmonella, E. coli, Streptococcus, Bacillus, Bifidobacterium, and Clostridium can inhibit tumor growth and reduce tumor frequency.
Bacterial-derived compounds, such as peptides and toxins, appear to be promising anti-cancer agents. Their main advantages are their small size, simple synthesis, and easily adaptable features. Some examples of natural peptides with assessed anti-cancer activity are bacterial cyclopeptides and Pseudomonas-derived azurin. Bacterial toxins, such as diphtheria toxin, can be used to create immunotoxins, chimeric fusion proteins that target cancer cells and inhibit their proliferation.
Bacteriotherapy has shown remarkable effects and has the potential to revolutionize cancer clinical practice. However, several questions must be addressed, including bacterial toxicity, bacterial interaction with the tumor microenvironment, and DNA instability. This Research Topic aims to highlight the latest advances in primary and translational research in bacteria-based cancer treatment.
We encourage high-quality submissions that focus on, but are not limited to, the following themes:
- molecular mechanisms involved in the anti-cancer activity of bacterial compounds and live bacteria
- novel bacterial-derived molecules with anti-cancer activity
- investigations into bacteria-tumor microenvironment interactions
- evaluation of in vivo toxicity of bacteria and bacterial-derived compounds
- pre-clinical and clinical studies
Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of scope for this section and will not be accepted as part of this Research Topic.