Salmonella is a rod-shaped genus of non-spore-bearing bacteria. It is these microorganisms that cause more than one million food poisoning every year, with about 400 people dying. A team of researchers from Duke University was able to genetically reprogram salmonella so that they did not attack the human gastrointestinal tract, but aggressive forms of cancer.
Glioblastoma is no joke to you. The most common and aggressive form of brain tumor kills thousands every year If the diagnosis of glioblastoma is made, the patient lives up to 5 years only in 10% of cases, most often he has no more than 15 months to live. This form of oncology is resistant to chemotherapy and is almost impossible to defeat with radiotherapy. As you can imagine, surgery is not an option here either. If even one tumor cell remains inside the brain, it will become the beginning of a new malignant formation.
And this is where Salmonella enterica or intestinal Salmonella enters the scene. After a few genetic tweaks that scientists have inserted into its DNA, the bacterium turns into a homing missile that targets glioblastoma. Moreover, such therapy is practically harmless to the patient. Scientists have programmed the bacteria to be constantly deficient in amino acids known as purines. It so happened that the tumors are packed with purines, and therefore Salmonella flies to them like bees to honey. Once bacteria are injected into the brain, they penetrate deep into the tumor, where they begin to multiply.
The research team also programmed Salmonella to produce two compounds: azurian and p53, which activate self-destruction in cells, but only when the environment contains insufficient oxygen, for example, inside a tumor. In such a simple way, the bacterium devours tumor cells, and then dies from lack of oxygen. Scientists had to turn off the natural toxins of Salmonella so that it does not provoke the activation of the immune system of the human body and can effectively fight cancer. After the destruction of the tumor, no traces of bacteria remain.
In tests on laboratory rats, 20% of patients survived 100 days after the destruction of tumors, which is equivalent to 10 years of human life. The therapy will allow doctors to double the survival rate of patients, as well as significantly extend their life span. Of course, the success of laboratory tests in rodents is not the whole victory, but a good start has been made. So far, scientists have not announced when clinical trials of their treatment method in humans will begin. But, presumably, this will happen in the coming years.
ERGEI GRAY