SALMONELLA DELIVERS CANCER VACCINE

Jun 22, 2006
IFT Daily Newsletter
Institute of Food Technologists
https://www.the-jci.org/article.php?id=28045

Salmonella typhimurium -- often associated with delivering food poisoning -- could instead be used to deliver a cancer vaccine, say researchers writing in the July issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Cancer vaccines contain cancer-specific antigens that can trigger an immune response targeting cancer cells without harming normal cells. One problem in using the vaccines, however, is a delivery system. That is where the Salmonella bacterium comes into play.

Since disease-causing bacteria are old hands at stimulating the immune system, researchers have started to examine the suitability of bacteria -- stripped of their own disease-causing abilities -- as delivery vehicles for cancer vaccines. Sacha Gnjatic and colleagues from the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research constructed an avirulent strain of Salmonella typhimurium able to deliver the known tumor cell antigen NY-ESO-1.

Oral delivery to mice resulted in a regression of established NY-ESO-1-expressing tumors. The results of the study suggest that delivery of a cancer vaccine using the Salmonella typhimurium–based delivery system is a promising novel strategy for cancer vaccine development.

For more, see the article (pdf): In vivo antigen delivery by a Salmonella typimurium type III secretion system for therapeutic cancer vaccines.