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Salmonella as a new miracle weapon in the fight against cancer?
Every year, around 14 million people worldwide suffer from cancer and more than eight million people die from it. In the fight against the serious illness is mainly put on surgery, chemo and radiation. Researchers now report that Salmonella can also kill tumor cells.
Number of cancers is increasing
According to the Center for Cancer Registry Data at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), "around 14.1 million people worldwide suffer from cancer (without white skin cancer) every year and around 8.2 million people die from it". In Germany, too, there are more and more new cases of cancer. The number of new diagnoses has almost doubled in this country since 1970. Patients are usually treated by surgery, chemotherapy and / or radiation. South Korean scientists now report that salmonella can also help fight cancer.
Researchers have found that salmonella can help fight cancer. The bacteria can kill tumor cells. (Image: vitanovski / fotolia.com) Salmonella could be helpful in the fight against cancer
Salmonella are bacteria that can cause various diseases in humans, especially in the gastrointestinal area. Eating foods that are contaminated with them can cause discomfort such as abdominal pain, fever, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting.
But the bacteria can obviously also be good for your health. Researchers from South Korea report in the journal "Science Translational Medicine" that salmonella could be helpful in the fight against cancer.
Insufficiently supplied with oxygen
As the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" (FAZ) reports, Salmonella thrive in low-oxygen environment and also pass by with preference.
According to the information, such hypoxic regions are a hallmark of tumors whose blood vessel network is incomplete due to the precipitous growth and supplies its environment with insufficient oxygen.
The research team led by Jin Hai Zheng from the Chonnam National University Medical School in Gwangju has now modified Salmonella typhimurium to be even more attracted to tumors.
According to the FAZ, they are forced by a genetic defect to get one of their genetic components from rapidly multiplying tumor cells, where it is produced in abundance.
Tumors completely disappeared
It is said that in tumors of mice suffering from a form of colon cancer, the mutants administered via the blood were found to be ten thousand times higher than in normal organs such as the liver or spleen.
In addition, it was found that in half of the diseased mice infected with the modified Salmonella, the tumors completely regressed. In animals that received conventional Salmonella injections, only the survival time was doubled.
According to the FAZ, the researchers attribute the deadly effect against the tumor cells not to the bacteria themselves, but to cells of the immune system that are activated by the bacteria.
European experts are impressed
The work of Korean scientists also impressed European experts. Kevin Harrington, a professor of cancer biology at the Institute for Cancer Research in London, said, according to a report in the Daily Mail: "It has been known for some time that certain types of bacteria, including Salmonella strains, can but do not grow in tumors in normal tissue. "
But "so far, attempts to use bacteria for anti-cancer therapies have had limited success, both in the lab and in the clinic." He continues: "The current work of Zheng and colleagues represents a fascinating new approach to the use of bacteria." The British newspaper cites other professionals who pay great tribute to Korean researchers.
Even German scientists had reported years ago that salmonella can be effective against cancer cells. At the time, researchers at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig had stated that this method could be more suitable as a supplement or replacement for chemotherapy. Surgical intervention could not be prevented. (Ad)