Abstract
Bacteriotherapy and nanotechnology have shown remarkable potential in diagnostic and therapeutic applications for various diseases. Individual impacts of these micro-nano systems over different aspects of human health are well studied; however, an integrated system of bacteria-nanoparticle (NP) conjugation is less explored. The untamed potential of bacteria-NP conjugation could be a new tool for diagnosis and treatment of invasive diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and cancer. Mammalian cells exhibit cytosis as their defense mechanism when they encounter foreign elements such as bacteria. In these mammalian cells, during phagocytosis, bacteria are ruptured and lysed by lysozymes. A bacterium carrying the drug-tagged NP would be engulfed in the same manner and ultimately reaches the target cells. Rapid and continuous cell divisions in the cancer tissues lead to defective vessels, underdeveloped cellcell interconnects, development of hypoxic areas and heterogeneous population of tumor cells. This unorganized and poorly developed angiogenesis in tumor cells makes it difficult for conventional chemotherapeutic drugs to localize the tumors selectively. In the present scenario of diagnosis and treatment of cancer/tumor cells, it could be expected that the existing bacteriotherapy with the advanced nanotechnology would be a way further in the targeted drug delivery for cancer therapy. This review emphasizes the potential applications of bacteriotherapy with nanotechnology for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
Keywords: Bacteriotherapy, nanoparticles, drug-delivery, cancer, hypoxia, cancer therapy.