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Microbes as Medicines: Harnessing the Power of Bacteria in Advancing Cancer Treatment
Conventional anti-cancer therapy involves the use of chemical chemotherapeutics and radiation and are often non-specific in action. The development of drug resistance and the inability of the drug to penetrate the tumor cells has been a major pitfall in current treatment. This has led to the investi...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7589870/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33066447 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms21207575 |
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author | Sawant, Shruti S. Patil, Suyash M. Gupta, Vivek Kunda, Nitesh K. |
author_facet | Sawant, Shruti S. Patil, Suyash M. Gupta, Vivek Kunda, Nitesh K. |
author_sort | Sawant, Shruti S. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Conventional anti-cancer therapy involves the use of chemical chemotherapeutics and radiation and are often non-specific in action. The development of drug resistance and the inability of the drug to penetrate the tumor cells has been a major pitfall in current treatment. This has led to the investigation of alternative anti-tumor therapeutics possessing greater specificity and efficacy. There is a significant interest in exploring the use of microbes as potential anti-cancer medicines. The inherent tropism of the bacteria for hypoxic tumor environment and its ability to be genetically engineered as a vector for gene and drug therapy has led to the development of bacteria as a potential weapon against cancer. In this review, we will introduce bacterial anti-cancer therapy with an emphasis on the various mechanisms involved in tumor targeting and tumor suppression. The bacteriotherapy approaches in conjunction with the conventional cancer therapy can be effective in designing novel cancer therapies. We focus on the current progress achieved in bacterial cancer therapies that show potential in advancing existing cancer treatment options and help attain positive clinical outcomes with minimal systemic side-effects. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7589870 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-75898702020-10-29 Microbes as Medicines: Harnessing the Power of Bacteria in Advancing Cancer Treatment Sawant, Shruti S. Patil, Suyash M. Gupta, Vivek Kunda, Nitesh K. Int J Mol Sci Review Conventional anti-cancer therapy involves the use of chemical chemotherapeutics and radiation and are often non-specific in action. The development of drug resistance and the inability of the drug to penetrate the tumor cells has been a major pitfall in current treatment. This has led to the investigation of alternative anti-tumor therapeutics possessing greater specificity and efficacy. There is a significant interest in exploring the use of microbes as potential anti-cancer medicines. The inherent tropism of the bacteria for hypoxic tumor environment and its ability to be genetically engineered as a vector for gene and drug therapy has led to the development of bacteria as a potential weapon against cancer. In this review, we will introduce bacterial anti-cancer therapy with an emphasis on the various mechanisms involved in tumor targeting and tumor suppression. The bacteriotherapy approaches in conjunction with the conventional cancer therapy can be effective in designing novel cancer therapies. We focus on the current progress achieved in bacterial cancer therapies that show potential in advancing existing cancer treatment options and help attain positive clinical outcomes with minimal systemic side-effects. MDPI 2020-10-14 /pmc/articles/PMC7589870/ /pubmed/33066447 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms21207575 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Review Sawant, Shruti S. Patil, Suyash M. Gupta, Vivek Kunda, Nitesh K. Microbes as Medicines: Harnessing the Power of Bacteria in Advancing Cancer Treatment |
title | Microbes as Medicines: Harnessing the Power of Bacteria in Advancing Cancer Treatment |
title_full | Microbes as Medicines: Harnessing the Power of Bacteria in Advancing Cancer Treatment |
title_fullStr | Microbes as Medicines: Harnessing the Power of Bacteria in Advancing Cancer Treatment |
title_full_unstemmed | Microbes as Medicines: Harnessing the Power of Bacteria in Advancing Cancer Treatment |
title_short | Microbes as Medicines: Harnessing the Power of Bacteria in Advancing Cancer Treatment |
title_sort | microbes as medicines: harnessing the power of bacteria in advancing cancer treatment |
topic | Review |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7589870/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33066447 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijms21207575 |
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