May 4, 2017

Mouth Bacteria Can Worsen Colorectal Cancer – Cancer Network

From a paper published in Cell Host and Microbe, a series of laboratory findings showed that fusobacteria, commonly found in the mouth, travels through the bloodstream and enriches colorectal cancer cells, a process mediated by the Fap2 protein’s ability to recognize a sugar called Gal-GalNAc. In the future, either Fap2 or Gal-GalNAc could represent therapeutic targets for colorectal cancer.

“If we know how fusobacteria localize and become enriched in colon tumors, hopefully we can utilize the same or similar mechanisms to guide and deliver cancer therapeutics to colon tumors,” said co-senior author Wendy Garrett, MD, PhD, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, in a press release.

Read the article by Cancer Network, home of the Journal ONCOLOGY.