Salmonella
vs. Cancer
Food-Poisoning
Bug Trained to Attack Tumors
By Daniel J. DeNoon
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD
Source of Article: http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20080729/salmonella-vs-cancer
July 29, 2008 -- It's a Godzilla vs.
King Kong match-up -- in mice.
Researchers have pitted the food-poisoning bug salmonella
against breast, colon, and skin cancers in lab
animals. Who wins?
Hint: Don't bet on the cancer.
To fix the odds in salmonella's favor,
Loeffler and colleagues turned the bugs into ticking
time bombs. They genetically engineered the bacteria to give off the FasL cytokine, a deadly chemical signal that tells cells to
commit suicide
and also attracts attack by immune cells.
When injected into mice with breast or
colon cancers, the salmonella did exactly what they were supposed to do. They
inhibited the growth of breast tumors by 59% and growth of colon tumors by 82%.
Moreover, they reduced the tumor spread to other parts of the body by a third.
Perhaps most importantly, the deadly
chemical signal the bacteria carried did not damage the mice.
The results, Loeffler
and colleagues conclude, suggest that genetically engineered salmonella
"could offer an acceptable strategy for employing FasL
and possibly other toxic cytokines for cancer therapy."
The researchers report their findings
in the Aug. 6 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
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