Bacterial cancer therapy: A turning point for new paradigms

Vijayakumar Mayakrishnan; Priya Kannappan; Nagendran Tharmalingam; Rajendran J C Bose; Thiagarajan Madheswaran; Mohankandhasamy Ramasamy

doi:10.1016/j.drudis.2022.03.007

Bacterial cancer therapy: A turning point for new paradigms

Drug Discov Today. 2022 Aug;27(8):2043-2050. doi: 10.1016/j.drudis.2022.03.007. Epub 2022 Mar 15.

Authors

Vijayakumar Mayakrishnan¹, Priya Kannappan², Nagendran Tharmalingam³, Rajendran J C Bose⁴, Thiagarajan Madheswaran⁵, Mohankandhasamy Ramasamy⁶

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, Grassland and Forage Science Division, National Institute of Animal Science, Rural Development Administration, Cheonan-si, Chungcheongnam-do 31000, Republic of Korea.
² Department of Biochemistry, PSG College of Arts and Science (Autonomous), Affiliated to Bharathiar University, Coimbatore 641014, Tamil Nadu, India.
³ Infectious Diseases Division, Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Rhode Island Hospital, Providence, RI 02903, USA.
⁴ Biomedical and Translational Medicine, Masonic Medical Research Institute, Utica, NY, USA.
⁵ Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, School of Pharmacy, International Medical University, No. 126 Jalan Jalil Perkasa 19, Bukit Jalil, 57000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
⁶ Department of Chemical Engineering, Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada. Electronic address: thambiavn@gmail.com.

PMID: 35304339
DOI: 10.1016/j.drudis.2022.03.007

Abstract

Cancer treatments have advanced considerably in recent years, appreciably enhancing the quality of life and survival of cancer patients. However, standard cancer treatments still have limitations that must be improved. In recent years, bacteria-based cancer therapy has gained much more attention owing to its unique properties that are unachievable with standard therapeutics. Bacteria species such as Salmonella, Clostridium, and Listeria have been shown to control tumor growth with improved prognosis in experimental animal models and clinical settings.

Keywords: Anticancer; Bacterial-mediated; Engineered bacteria; Payload delivery; Tumor microenvironment; Tumor targeting.

MeSH terms

Animals
Bacteria
Clostridium
Humans
Neoplasms* / drug therapy
Quality of Life*
Salmonella