Bacteria and cancer: Advances, perspectives and applications

Abstract

A bacterium has all the essential information for life in a single molecule of circular, double-stranded deoxyribonucleic acid. Such knowledge has been used on a large scale by genetic engineering, which with in vitro techniques alter the genetic material in the laboratory and can insert this modified material in the original organism or some other. Today, it is known that the microbiota modulates responses to cancer treatment and susceptibility to toxic side effects. In the present work, a bibliographical review of scientific articles in the science direct database was carried out, with combinations of keywords covering publications from the period between 2015 to 2017. As a criterion of choice we chose to select papers that deal with the role of bacteria in carcinogenesis, since pro-and anticarcinogenic functions have been attributed to microorganisms, and it has been found that there is still no consolidated research on the therapeutic potential, and it is necessary to invest in this line to effectively apply of them.