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A strain of bacteria from the genus clostridium has been created that destroys cancer cells
Last reviewed: 30.06.2025
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According to the new method, a soil bacterium from the genus Clostridium will search for cancerous growths in the human body: having settled in a tumor, it will begin to synthesize an enzyme that converts an inactive antitumor drug into an active killer of cancer cells.
The imagination of researchers working on the problem of cancer is truly inexhaustible. Scientists from the University of Maastricht (Netherlands) and the University of Nottingham (Great Britain) have created a strain of bacteria from the genus Clostridium, which will help destroy malignant tumors. The authors reported the results of their work at the autumn congress of the Society of General Microbiology; clinical trials of the proposed method are planned for 2013.
Anaerobic clostridia are one of the most ancient groups of microorganisms, which trace their lineage back to the times when there was no oxygen atmosphere on Earth. Now they live in oxygen-free ecological niches. Among them are natural human symbionts and the most dangerous pathogens - the causative agents of tetanus, gas gangrene and botulism.
The species that they decided to use to fight cancer is called Clostridium sporogenes; this bacterium is widespread in the soil. Unfavorable conditions encourage clostridia to form spores, and this is the basis for the proposed method. After introducing the spores to a person, the bacteria will begin to develop only in conditions of almost complete absence of oxygen. And the most optimal place for them will be the core of the tumor. As scientists say, the bacteria does not even need to be specially trained to detect the tumor by introducing additional genes into it: it will find the target itself.
But that's only half the story. The method still involves genetic modifications: Clostridium sporogenes is supplied with an "advanced" version of a certain bacterial enzyme. The modified gene produces large quantities of this enzyme, which is necessary for converting the anti-tumor drug, which is injected in an inactive form after the bacteria.
So, the following chain is obtained: a bacterial spore, having found itself in an oxygen-free tumor, turns into a bacterium and begins to synthesize an enzyme that breaks down the drug that kills cancer cells. For healthy tissues, the drug in an inactive form is safe, and this solves the problem of the specificity of chemotherapy and saves the patient's body from general poisoning with the drug. This method, however, is not suitable for leukemia, which, unlike other tumors, does not look like a clear, dense formation. Clinical trials will certainly be decisive, but still, the idea of an anaerobic bacterium that gets only into tumors and nowhere else seems a little fantastic.
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