“There are more and more papers coming out showing that they may be part of carcinogenesis,” says Straussmann. Bacteria also Alters the immune system’s ability to target and destroy cancer cellshe added. “But we’re really just scratching the surface here.” Much more needs to be done to study the effects of bacteria in tumors on the course of cancer, he says.
We already have some clues. For example, his 2022 study by Chinese scientists suggests that some bacteria within breast tumors can become infected. Make it easier for cancer cells to spread to other parts of the body. Researchers found bacteria living within breast tumor cells circulating in the blood of mice.these are circulating cancer cells It can slough off from the primary tumor and travel to other parts of the body where it can metastasize and grow. But when tumor cells rattle around in the bloodstream, some of them are under stress that causes them to break apart.
Chinese researchers have found that microbes within these migrating tumor cells appear to protect the cells from some of the stresses they experience.They seem to be doing this by helping reorganize internal cell support structure known as the cytoskeleton Therefore, cells become more robust. When the scientists removed these bacteria from mouse tumors, the primary breast cancers continued to grow, but the tumors appeared to lose their ability to metastasize.
“Certain microbes in the gut, skin, other mucosal organs and tumors can either promote tumor growth and progression or antagonize them,” said Douglas Hanahan, an oncologist at the Swiss Institute. There is growing evidence that there is.” He contributed to experimental cancer research in Lausanne, Switzerland, Cancer hallmarks: a new dimension. However, the image is still vague. “The situation is very complicated, and although there are clues, there is no clear point as to who is doing what.”
We also looked at other studies Fusobacterium nucleatum, Oral bacteria associated with periodontal diseasebut it might be Associated with many different cancers.guess so These bacteria can travel from the mouth through the bloodstream to colorectal cancer cells. Each bacterium has specific particles on its surface that can bind to the surface of cancer cells and colonize them.
Once established, this bacterium can accelerate tumor growth and spread by interfering with the immune system’s ability to kill cancer cells.protein produced by Fusobacterium nucleatum Binds to molecular regulatory machinery on the surface of human natural killer cells and T cells. Both of these are important parts of the immune system’s defense against tumors.this binding Inhibits cells’ ability to destroy cancer cells. Bacteria also deploy molecular weapons that make cancer cells. Increased resistance to chemotherapy.
moreover, Fusobacterium nucleatumfound DNA of in human breast cancer samples. This suggests that it also affects tumors elsewhere in the body. In one study, when the bacterium was introduced into mice with breast cancer, accelerated disease progression and spread. Giving the mice antibiotics prevented this.
While it may be tempting to incorporate antibiotics into cancer treatment, it is not that simple. Because many of the microbes in our bodies are benign or even beneficial, aggressive antibiotic treatment could do more harm than good, Hanahan says.
Instead, researchers must seek to fully unravel the complexity of the tumor-associated microbiome. Entire microbial communities exist within tumors, supporting each other in unexpected ways.
