Who could possibly believe that our anaerobic spore-forming Clostridia will be used as an anti-tumor therapy?! It’s called Clostridium-based tumor targeted therapy. “Give me a break,” that’s exactly what I said when I read the review of the new book Clostridia: Molecular Biology in the Post-genomic Era.

So, how does it work? There are various non-pathogenic Clostridia strains which could replicate within solid tumors upon systemic administration. The interesting part is coming right up: Why solid tumors?! It’s because of its very unique physiology; it characterized by hypoxia & necrosis which totally fits the anaerobic Clostridia. The advantage will be the selectivity & targeting of the cancer cells leading to destroying them.

It was news to me to know that Cl. perfringens causes food poisoning like any food-borne illness & causes antibiotic-associated diarrhea (When I hear the name Cl. perfringens, I orient myself toward gas gangrene right away). Its enterotoxin gene (cpe) is present on the chromosome itself (in food poisoning isolates) and on the plasmid (in the antibiotic-associated diarrhea isolates). The enterotoxin binds to claudin receptors, then there’s oligomerization or “prepore” formation & finally prepore insertion takes place to form the functional pore which kills the cells by apoptosis. So CPE/CPE derivatives could be used for cancer therapy.