Bacterial vectors and delivery systems in cancer therapy

Abstract

Live bacterial vectors may be useful tools for the development of novel cancer therapies that can be added to the repertoire of existing drugs. Several bacterial strains effectively colonize solid tumors and act as antitumor therapeutics. The naturally occurring tumor-colonizing characteristics of bacterial species such as Salmonella sp, Clostridium sp and Escherichia coli can be further modified by genetic manipulations, making these bacterial systems excellent vehicles for the production and targeted delivery of therapeutic molecules into cancer cells. This feature review summarizes recent research on cancer therapy using genetically modified bacteria. Different approaches - bactofection, DNA vaccination, and bacterially mediated protein and RNAi delivery - in which modified bacteria are used as anticancer therapeutics, are discussed.