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Bacterial vectors for imaging and cancer gene therapy: a review

Cancer Gene Therapy volume 19, pages 731–740 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

The significant burden of resistance to conventional anticancer treatments in patients with advanced disease has prompted the need to explore alternative therapeutic strategies. The challenge for oncology researchers is to identify a therapy which is selective for tumors with limited toxicity to normal tissue. Engineered bacteria have the unique potential to overcome traditional therapies’ limitations by specifically targeting tumors. It has been shown that bacteria are naturally capable of homing to tumors when systemically administered resulting in high levels of replication locally, either external to (non-invasive species) or within tumor cells (pathogens). Pre-clinical and clinical investigations involving bacterial vectors require relevant means of monitoring vector trafficking and levels over time, and development of bacterial-specific real-time imaging modalities are key for successful development of clinical bacterial gene delivery. This review discusses the currently available imaging technologies and the progress to date exploiting these for monitoring of bacterial gene delivery in vivo.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge support relevant to this manuscript from the European Commission Seventh Framework Program (PIOF-GA-2009-255466), the Irish Health Research Board (HRA_POR/2010/138), (HRB_PhD/2007/4) and the Irish Cancer Society (CRF11CRO).

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  1. Cork Cancer Research Centre, BioSciences Institute, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

    M Cronin, R M Stanton & M Tangney

  2. Caliper – a PerkinElmer Company, Alameda, CA, USA

    K P Francis

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KPF is an employee of Caliper-a PerkinElmer Company. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the CGT policies on sharing data and materials. The other authors declared no conflict of interest.

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Cronin, M., Stanton, R., Francis, K. et al. Bacterial vectors for imaging and cancer gene therapy: a review. Cancer Gene Ther 19, 731–740 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/cgt.2012.59

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