Microbial Infections and Cancer Therapy

This book deals with the emerging concept that certain pathogenic bacteria and viruses, when infecting people with cancer, actively fight tumors, allowing their regression. Although such observations go back more than 100 years, use of specific bacterial strains, or viruses, usually genetically modified with known anticancer drugs, and their protein/peptide products, has gained ground in recent years, allowing significant cancer regression in clinical trials with stage III/IV cancer patients or even in pediatric brain tumor patients, often without any demonstration of toxicity. It is composed of 12 chapters written by pioneers in microbial, biotech, and cancer research and covers the emerging roles of various microorganisms and their products in cancer therapy. The book highlights the benefits of using conventional cancer treatments (such as chemo- and radiotherapies) with microbial-based therapies. Such combinatorial therapies have gained particular attention as a strategy to overcome drug resistance, and the readers of the book will discover their impact on fundamental research and promising results from clinical trials.

 

Table of Contents

Bifidobacterium as a Delivery System of Functional Gene for Cancer Gene Therapy

Chao Han, Yu-qing Dai, Zi-chun Hua, Geng-Feng Fu, Yan Yin, Bi Hu, and Gen-xing Xu

 

Therapy with Oncolytic Clostridium novyi-NT: From Mice to Men

Shibin Zhou

 

Genetic Engineering of Clostridial Strains for Cancer Therapy

Maria Zygouropoulou, Aleksandra Kubiak, Adam V. Patterson, and Nigel P. Minton

 

Bacteria-Derived Alternatives to Live Mycobacterium bovis Bacillus Calmette-Guerin for Non-Muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer Treatment

Esther Julián and Estela Noguera-Ortega

 

Genetically Modified Salmonella as Cancer Therapeutics: Mechanisms, Advances and Challenges

Xiaoxin Zhang and Zi-Chun Hua

 

Genetically Engineered Oncolytic Salmonella typhimurium

Jin Hai Zheng and Jung-Joon Min

 

Engineering E. coli to Combat Cancer

Carlos Piñero-Lambea, David Ruano-Gallego, Gustavo Bodelón, Beatriz Álvarez, and Luis Ángel Fernández

 

Live P. aeruginosa as Cancer Vaccine Vector

Y. Wang, B. Polack, and B. Toussaint

 

The Anticancer Potential of the Bacterial Protein Azurin and Its Derived Peptide P28

Ana Rita Garizo, Nuno Bernardes, Ananda M. Chakrabarty, and Arsénio M. Fialho

 

Bacteriocins: From Antimicrobial to Potencial Anticancer Agents

Lígia Coelho, Nuno Bernardes, and Arsénio M. Fialho

 

Bacteriocins as Anticancer Peptides? A Biophysical Approach

Filipa Dias de Oliveira, Miguel A. R. B. Castanho, and Diana Gaspar

 

Where Cancer and Bacteria Meet

Alexandra Merlos, Ricardo Perez-Tomás, José López-López, and Miguel Viñas