Researchers find gut bacteria that makes anticancer drugs work better in mice
Immunity-boosting cancer drugs are said to be sufficiently effective in less than half the subjects. The patients' gut microbiome had been pointed out as a possible factor, but the mechanism remained unclear.
Researchers from the National Cancer Center Japan and others published their findings in the science journal Nature.
The researchers studied stool samples from 50 cancer patients who had undergone immunotherapy.
They found that patients who responded well to the therapy had a higher ratio of a strain of bacteria named YB328.
The researchers transplanted the strain into one group of mice with cancer that had been cleared of gut flora.
In another group of mice, they administered a different microbe from patients unresponsive to immunotherapy.
They say that when both groups were injected with anticancer drugs, mice given the YB328 saw their tumors grow smaller.
The research team says another experiment showed that the bacterial strain activates immune cells.
The National Cancer Center Research Institute's Nishikawa Hiroyoshi said YB328 could enhance the efficacy of immunity-boosting drugs in patients who had not benefited from the therapy.
He said he hopes to continue the studies to develop new medication.
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