Microbes in Oncology: Controllable Strategies for Bacteria Therapy

Abstract Bacterial therapy is an emerging method of tumor treatment. By utilizing wild-type bacteria or engineered bacteria to treat solid tumors, bacterial therapy has recently attracted attention due to its high therapeutic specificity. Although many bacterial strains have been tested in animal models or have even advanced to clinical trials, the efficacy of bacterial therapy remains undesirable. The lack of efficient control methods could cause side effects as well as insufficient therapeutic efficiency, both of which are urgent problems for bacterial therapy. Therefore, some studies have constructed bacteria with inducible plasmid or adsorption with responsive nanoparticles, which improved controllability and specificity during bacterial therapy. Herein, we introduce the unique advantages of bacteria in cancer treatment and highlight the issues associated with the application of bacterial therapy, focusing on the incorporation of various methodologies in the advancement of some controllable strategies in bacterial therapy.