Use of the salmonella bacteria that kill cancer cells

Treat certain tumors with Salmonella bacteria may promote an immune response in the body that causes the death of cancer cells, according to the findings of a study conducted by researchers from Italy and the United States and published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Thanks to the bacteria, immune cells were activated and were headed to eliminate cancer cells To test their theory, the scientists inoculated salmonella (previously treated so as not to overgrow and cause salmonellosis) in mice with cancer and in cell cultures human melanoma, ensuring that the bacteria help the immune system to detect cancer cells and then eliminate them. According to the study's authors explain, in the early stages of cancer, the body's defenses tend to recognize cancer cells as "abnormal" and destroy them, but as the cancer progresses, cancer cells can become "invisible" to the immune system.
This is due to a bug in the "immune system of communication" which reduces the levels of the protein ' Connexin 43 ', responsible for establishing communication between the different types of defensive cells and enable the warning system.

The technique also protected the rodents from the spread of cancer to other parts of the body In this sense, the researchers found that injecting 'salmonella' in mice with cancer and human melanoma cells raised the number of 'Connexin 43'. As a result, formed new channels of communication and the immune cells were activated and were going to eliminate cancer cells.
"The technique also protected the rodents from the spread of cancer to other parts of the body," says one of the managers of study, Maria Rescigno, European Institute of Oncology in Milan (Italy), who has suggested the possibility of developing a preventive strategy based on vaccination from this discovery.