New research suggests some gut bacteria that cause gastric upsets may also create an ideal “incubating” environment for tumor development, by preventing routine mechanisms that repair damaged DNA.
Researchers from the Wistar Institute, a National Cancer Institute designated research center in Philadelphia, PA, presented their findings at the 2014 American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting in San Diego, CA.
Senior investigator Frank Rauscher, III, a professor in the Wistar Institute, says:
“There is a drastic, unmet need to look at new ways to define exactly how colon cancer forms in the gut and what triggers its progression into a lethal form. We suggest that some bacterial proteins can promote genetic changes that create conditions in the gut that would favor the progression of colon cancer.”