Mycobacteria-Based Vaccines as Immunotherapy for Non-urological Cancers

Abstract

<jats:p>The arsenal against different types of cancers has increased impressively in the last decade. The detailed knowledge of the tumor microenvironment enables it to be manipulated in order to help the immune system fight against tumor cells by using specific checkpoint inhibitors, cell-based treatments, targeted antibodies, and immune stimulants. In fact, it is widely known that the first immunotherapeutic tools as immune stimulants for cancer treatment were bacteria and still are; specifically, the use of Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) continues to be the treatment of choice for preventing cancer recurrence and progression in non-invasive bladder cancer. BCG and also other mycobacteria or their components are currently under study for the immunotherapeutic treatment of different malignancies. This review focuses on the preclinical and clinical assays using mycobacteria to treat non-urological cancers, providing a wide knowledge of the beneficial applications of these microorganisms to manipulate the tumor microenvironment aiming at tumor clearance.</jats:p>

Repurposing Infectious Diseases Vaccines Against Cancer

“…1) The literature on BCG and non-urological cancers has been reviewed in 2020 by Noguera-Ortega et al Their comprehensive review is a very useful tool to navigate through the wealth of data published since the 1930s about BCG experiments in non-urological cancer types. It also includes data with mycobacteria other than BCG (24). 2) Preceding its use in bladder cancer, BCG had been extensively studied and consequently recommended for melanoma.…”

“…This approval is the end result of a clinical development conducted in the 1970s and 1980s in multiple cancer types. This program has led to mixed results with successes in non-muscle invasive bladder cancers and melanoma, but discontinuation or failure in other tumor types, including in phase 3 trials for ovarian and small-cell lung cancer ( 24 ). Since our report focuses on publications after 2000, a few important points need to be made before discussing the abstracts identified by our methodology.…”

“…Their comprehensive review is a very useful tool to navigate through the wealth of data published since the 1930s about BCG experiments in non-urological cancer types. It also includes data with mycobacteria other than BCG ( 24 ).…”

“…4) Building on the BCG success, multiple mycobacteria-based products have been developed and tested in clinical trials ( 24 ). One product called mifamurtide, an analogue of muramyl dipeptide which is a component of Mycobacterium cell wall, is approved in Europe since 2009 for the treatment of osteosarcoma after surgical resection ( 29 ).…”

Potential of Mycobacterium tuberculosis chorismate mutase (Rv1885c) as a novel TLR4-mediated adjuvant for dendritic cell-based cancer immunotherapy

“…have been widely studied. 24 Notably, Mycobacterium bovis Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) therapy for nonmuscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) is one of the few examples of successful immunotherapy in clinical use. 25 Furthermore, heat-killed (HK) Mycobacterium vaccae , 26 Mycobacterium indicus pranii (MIP) 27 and Mycobacterium paragordonae (Mpg) 28 have also been demonstrated to exert anticancer effects in both in vitro and in vivo models.…”