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5 February 2018
Patients with an inherited form of colon cancer harbor two bacterial species that collaborate to encourage development of the disease, and the same species have been found in people who develop a sporadic form of colon cancer, a study led by a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy research team finds.
The Science findings describe a process in which these bacteria invade the protective mucus layer of the colon and collude to create a microenvironment—complete with nutrients and everything the bacteria needs to survive—that induces chronic inflammation and subsequent DNA damage that supports tumor formation.
These new findings by Cynthia Sears, M.D., professor of medicine, and a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center’s Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute, are built upon her earlier research showing that particular strains of bacteria can invade the colon mucus in at least half of patients who get colon cancer but have no inherited predisposition for the disease. Unlike most bacteria, which do not make it past the colon’s protective mucus layer, these communities of bacteria that invade the mucus form a sticky biofilm right next to the colon epithelial cells that line the colon, where colon cancer usually originates. There, Sears and colleagues propose that these bacterial communities may eventually help the epithelial cells to become cancerous
Ultimately, once better understood, drugs or vaccines to prevent colonization of these bacteria in the colon, and potentially even probiotics to chase the bugs from the colon are preventive measures that could be explored to interrupt the cancer-promoting process.
Link to Science publication
Link to news article in Dutch
Annemarie Boleij, theme Tumors of the digestive tract and colleagues recently published an article in the prestigious journal Science.
Patients with an inherited form of colon cancer harbor two bacterial species that collaborate to encourage development of the disease, and the same species have been found in people who develop a sporadic form of colon cancer, a study led by a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy research team finds.
The Science findings describe a process in which these bacteria invade the protective mucus layer of the colon and collude to create a microenvironment—complete with nutrients and everything the bacteria needs to survive—that induces chronic inflammation and subsequent DNA damage that supports tumor formation.
These new findings by Cynthia Sears, M.D., professor of medicine, and a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center’s Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute, are built upon her earlier research showing that particular strains of bacteria can invade the colon mucus in at least half of patients who get colon cancer but have no inherited predisposition for the disease. Unlike most bacteria, which do not make it past the colon’s protective mucus layer, these communities of bacteria that invade the mucus form a sticky biofilm right next to the colon epithelial cells that line the colon, where colon cancer usually originates. There, Sears and colleagues propose that these bacterial communities may eventually help the epithelial cells to become cancerous
Ultimately, once better understood, drugs or vaccines to prevent colonization of these bacteria in the colon, and potentially even probiotics to chase the bugs from the colon are preventive measures that could be explored to interrupt the cancer-promoting process.
Link to Science publication
Link to news article in Dutch
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