The bacteria that live inside you shape who you are on a pretty fundamental level--from
your psychology to your body type.
But new research also indicates that the billions and even trillions of tiny creatures in your
body play a major role in the way you react to medical treatments...making your microbial
ecosystem a literal matter of life and death.
Yeah, hi, it’s me, your favorite microbe geek here.
As we discover more and more about how the bacteria inside us influence our lives and
our health, we also discover more places where this relationship is really important--and
one of these areas is cancer.
Yup, it turns out that your body’s bacteria play a HUGE role in how you respond to cancer
and its treatment...and they could hold the key to the future of how we treat this disease.
In the last few decades, one promising way we’ve started treating cancer is called
immunotherapy.
It activates the body’s own immune system to identify and attack cancerous cells.
Scientists have been puzzled about why immunotherapy works so well in some patients, while in others
it has little effect.
And three recent studies indicate that it’s likely the patient’s bacterial populations
that are the game-changer.
Researchers divided patient gut bacteria into the categories ‘good’ and ‘bad’, and
patients with more good bacteria were the ones who responded well to treatment with
immunotherapy--their tumors stopped growing or even shrank.
Researchers then went on to demonstrate in mouse models that treating cancer patients
with a cocktail of the ‘good’ bacteria improved their response to the immunotherapy.
The theory goes that our microbiome is intricately linked to our immune system.
Bad bacteria seem to inhibit our immune system’s proper functioning, while good bacteria help
prep immune cells to be on the lookout for foreign bodies, like tumors.
And we’re still unraveling how all these relationships work.
Immunotherapy is just the beginning.
It’s been demonstrated that bacteria can also be used directly to kill tumors.
As in, you can inject bacteria into a tumor area and watch as they grow to literally suffocate
and starve the tumor, because they’re eating everything the tumor needs to grow.
It’s called bacteria mediated tumor therapy, and it’s surprisingly effective...but perhaps
not-so surprisingly, you do then have the problem of a potentially dangerous bacterial
infection that you now need to treat.
Balancing that is tricky and has hindered the progress--and popularity-- of this treatment
method.
7.
Bacteria also tend to produce something called a biofilm, which is one of my favorite bacterial
behaviors.
When there’s a certain number of bacteria, called a quorum, they start to bind together,
forming a mass of cells that behaves more like a single unit than like individual bacteria.
Some research shows that biofilm formation actively disrupts and blocks tumor metastasis,
suggesting it could be useful in stopping the spread of cancer while the patient goes
through treatment.
And it doesn’t stop there.
Bacteria can also be genetically engineered to detect cancer’s movements--a probiotic
form of E. coli, for example, can be taken by a patient whose subsequent urine output
will indicate whether their cancer has metastasized to their liver--because of the way their body
processed that bacteria.
As living breathing organisms themselves, bacteria are constantly producing lots of
enzymes and proteins and hormone-like chemicals, to communicate with each other, to help them
eat stuff, to generally just help them live their little lives.
Some bacteria produce toxins that help them kill whatever wants to eat them, and in some
cases, this protein--called a bacteriocin--can also be toxic to cancer cells.
It can be used to aid the effect of certain cancer drugs, or on its own to tackle tumors
in a huge variety of cancers.
And even aside from being used directly, bacteria can be modified to carry targeted cancer treatment
to the necessary tissues.
But while our invisible, microscopic friends can help us in the face of this disease, they
can actively hinder us, too.
A seminal study revealed that in some patients who didn’t respond well to chemotherapy,
bacteria inside their tumors disable those drugs to protect themselves, meaning the drugs
can’t do any damage against the tumor either.
This discovery was actually a pretty huge revelation in our understanding of why some
peoples’ systems react to cancer treatment so differently.
And it brings up the question: antibiotics?
Or no?
Obviously we don’t want bacteria that neutralize our cancer drugs, but can we get rid of them
while also keeping the ‘good’ bacteria that help our immune system?
Not to mention the potential risk of accidentally creating cancer-drug-killing bacteria that
then become antibiotic resistant, which would be no bueno for anybody.
This field is so.
exciting.
And we’re only just beginning to understand and take advantage of it.
This basically opens up a whole new dimension in personalized medicine and could give us
a much more detailed understanding of the diseases that plague us, and how to treat
them.
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If you think bacteria are as cool as I do then check out my other video on how your
gut microbes are controlling your mind.
And fun fact?
One of the most prevalent ‘good’ bacteria that doctors found in patients who responded
well to treatment is called Bifidobacterium longum.
Good goin’, little guy.
Make sure to keep coming back for all things microscopically creepy crawly, and thanks
for watching Seeker.