Dec 8, 2024 03:07 AM
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1067445
INTRO: A toxin in the bacteria that’s one of the most common causes of foodborne illness accelerates the spread of colorectal tumors to other parts of the body, a study led by UF Health Cancer Center researchers and international collaborators has found.
The findings, published Dec. 2 in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, could pave the way for new tools to detect metastatic colorectal cancer early and could ultimately help determine patients who need more aggressive treatments.
“This work contributes to a new understanding of how bacterial toxins promote colorectal metastasis, opening novel screening approaches to predict at-risk patients,” said Christian Jobin, Ph.D., the Gatorade Distinguished Professor of Medicine in the UF College of Medicine who oversaw the new research, which his former postdoc Zhen He, M.D., began in Jobin’s lab.
The intestinal microbiota is the collection of microorganisms that live in the gut. These microorganisms are known to play a wide-ranging role in health, from digestion to regulation of the immune system. They also influence the development and spread of several types of cancer, including colorectal.
Campylobacter jejuni (C. jejuni) is a bacterium that causes more than 2 million cases of diarrheal-related illness each year in the United States. Some C. jejuni species have a toxin called cytolethal distending toxin, or CDT. Jobin, co-leader of the UF Health Cancer Center’s Immuno-Oncology and Microbiome research program, and his lab previously showed this toxin was essential to causing colorectal cancer in mice... (MORE - details, no ads)
INTRO: A toxin in the bacteria that’s one of the most common causes of foodborne illness accelerates the spread of colorectal tumors to other parts of the body, a study led by UF Health Cancer Center researchers and international collaborators has found.
The findings, published Dec. 2 in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, could pave the way for new tools to detect metastatic colorectal cancer early and could ultimately help determine patients who need more aggressive treatments.
“This work contributes to a new understanding of how bacterial toxins promote colorectal metastasis, opening novel screening approaches to predict at-risk patients,” said Christian Jobin, Ph.D., the Gatorade Distinguished Professor of Medicine in the UF College of Medicine who oversaw the new research, which his former postdoc Zhen He, M.D., began in Jobin’s lab.
The intestinal microbiota is the collection of microorganisms that live in the gut. These microorganisms are known to play a wide-ranging role in health, from digestion to regulation of the immune system. They also influence the development and spread of several types of cancer, including colorectal.
Campylobacter jejuni (C. jejuni) is a bacterium that causes more than 2 million cases of diarrheal-related illness each year in the United States. Some C. jejuni species have a toxin called cytolethal distending toxin, or CDT. Jobin, co-leader of the UF Health Cancer Center’s Immuno-Oncology and Microbiome research program, and his lab previously showed this toxin was essential to causing colorectal cancer in mice... (MORE - details, no ads)