Learning from Clostridium novyi-NT: How to defeat cancer

Side effects associated with conventional anticancer therapies have prompted the new idea of solid tumor treatment strategy. One of them is using bacteria explored as potential antitumor agents over more than one century. Notably, the ideal therapy is a specifical target to tumors with limited toxicity. Here, we take Clostridium novyi for the search keyword in the PubMed from 2000 to 2015 and describe that C. novyi-NT spores act as Trojan horse for bacteriolytic therapy. This therapy is based on the fact that the live and attenuated obligate anaerobic bacteria are capable of binary fission selectively in anoxic areas of solid tumors and direct tumoricidal effects. Our succinct review mainly concentrates on the potential mechanisms of combination bacteriolytic therapy, an effective and safe tumor therapy with the help of C. novyi-NT. Importantly, C. novyi-NT spores were shown to induce solid tumor regression and exhibit the property to initiate an immune response. Therefore, C. novyi-NT spores should be an effective and safe tumor therapy.