Prospect of bacteria for tumor diagnosis and treatment

In recent decades, the comprehensive cancer treatments including surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy have improved the overall survival rate and quality of life of many cancer patients. However, we are still facing many difficult problems in the cancer treatment, such as unpredictable side effects, high recurrence rate, and poor curative effect. Therefore, the better intervention strategies are needed in this field. In recent years, the role and importance of microbiota in a variety of diseases were focused on as a hot research topic, and the role of some intracellular bacteria of cancer cells in carcinogenesis has recently been discovered. The impact of bacteria on cancer is not limited to their contribution to tumorigenesis, but the overall susceptibility of bacteria to subsequent tumor progression, the development of concurrent infections, and the response to anti-cancer therapy have also been found to be affected. Concerns about the contribution of bacteria in the anti-cancer response have inspired researchers to develop bacteria-based anti-cancer treatments. In this paper, we reviewed the main roles of bacteria in the occurrence and development of tumors, and summarized the mechanism of bacteria in the occurrence, development, and clinical anti-tumor treatment of tumors, providing new insights for the in-depth study of the role of bacteria in tumor diagnosis and treatment. This review aims to provide a new perspective for the development of new technologies based on bacteria to enhance anti-tumor immunotherapy.