THERAPEUTIC APPROACH TOWARDS COLON CANCER: BACTERIAL AID TO
THE RESCUE.
Poulomee Karmakar, Manoj K. Chakrabarti*
a Division of Pathophysiology, National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases,
P-33, C.I.T.Road, Scheme-XM, Beliaghata, Kolkata-700010. India.
*
Corresponding Author
E-mail: mkc_niced@yahoo.co.in
Tel: 91-33-2370-5533,
Fax: 91-33-2350-5066
ABSTRACT:
The past years have witnessed the inculcation of interest in scientists regarding colon cancer treatment with
microorganisms. This has been due to the observations that some microbes prefer to replicate selectively or
exhibit preferential accumulation within tumor microenvironment. Besides, conventional therapies implied in
this field displays resistance to the disease at some point of time. The preferential replication of microorganisms
provides immense probability to amplify the therapeutic effect of the microorganism while sparing the normal
tissues from toxicity. With the presence of plentiful effector genes which could be engineered into bacterial
hosts, the therapies could be comprehensive to sequential or concurrent administration of similar or dissimilar
bacteria containing different gene products. Demonstration of the concept of selective intratumoral accumulation
of bacteria in cancer patients can be anticipated to lead to an enormous and new repertoire of therapeutic
options for the treatment of metastatic disease such as colon cancer
Keywords:
Colon cancer, bacteria, Escherichia coli, hemolysin, immunotherapy.