Cancer therapy by using bacteria

Cancer is already one of the major challenges for human health. Several studies about the novel ways of treating cancer have been done in recent years. This article, represents a review of the studies that have been conducted in cancer treatment by bacteria. This study was done by searching around available scientific resources, particularly scientific papers in cyberspace, which were investigated, classified, and their conclusions were presented. Nowadays, the use of bacteria as one of the new methods have been considered for the treatment of cancer. Based on the observed effect of some bacteria on cancer, the basis for further studies on bacteria was developed in order to treat cancer. The most important bacteria with anti-cancer effect that exist in the literature include: Salmonella typhimurium, Salmonella cholerasuis, Clostridium novyi, Clostridium butyricum, Clostridium sporogenes, Clostridium acetobutylicum , Bifidobacterium infantis, Bifidobacterium longum, Bifidobacterium adolescentis, Listeria monocytogenes, Vibrio cholerae and Escherichia coli. The components that the bacteria are using to defeat cancer cells are: bacteria’s enzymes and toxins, the competition between bacteria and tumor cells, proliferation of bacteria in tumor’s vicinity, autophagia, stimulating the immune system, production of different cytokines, peptides and other materials and using some parts of bacteria as adjuvant. Many bacteria have been tested to treat cancer until 2016, however some of them culminated in better results including: Clostridium ,Salmonella and Bifidobacterium. The use of Bacillus Calmette -Guerin for the treatment of bladder cancer, S.Typhimurium x4550 for the treatment of liver cancer, Pseudomonas for the treatment of glioblastoma and also Clostridium perfringens for the treatment of pancreatic, breast, stomach and colon cancers are examples the use of bacteria in this field. It is important to note that using bacteria for treating cancer is associated with some restrictions ,for example, toxin production by bacteria. Due to the multifactorial nature of cancer, usually no treatment alone is sufficient for overcoming cancer and using combined methods seems necessary. Therefore application of bacteria to treat cancer in combination with other major procedures such as chemotherapy and radio therapy can open a new path for treating patients

کلیدواژه ها:

Cancer therapy ، Bacteria ، Microbiology