Abstract
In recent decades, cancer and multidrug resistance have become a worldwide problem, resulting in high morbidity and mortality. Some infectious agents like Streptococcus pneumoniae, Stomatococcus mucilaginous, Staphylococcus spp., E. coli. Klebsiella spp., Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Candida spp., Helicobacter pylori, hepatitis B and C, and human papillomaviruses (HPV) have been associated with the development of cancer. Chemotherapy, radiotherapy and antibiotics are the conventional treatment for cancer and infectious disease. This treatment causes damage in healthy cells and tissues, and usually triggers systemic side-effects, as well as drug resistance. Therefore, the search for new treatments is urgent, in order to improve efficacy and also reduce side-effects. Proteins and peptides originating from bacteria can thus be a promising alternative to conventional treatments used nowadays against cancer and infectious disease. These molecules have demonstrated specific activity against cancer cells and bacterial infection; indeed, proteins and peptides can be considered as future antimicrobial and anticancer drugs. In this context, this review will focus on the desirable characteristics of proteins and peptides from bacterial sources that demonstrated activity against microbial infections and cancer, as well as their efficacy in vitro and in vivo.
Highlights
In recent years, global health authorities have had to deal with two significant problems: the alarming number of people suffering from cancer and the rise of antimicrobial resistance (AMR)
Conventional cancer treatments do not act on specific targets, such as malignant cells, resulting in severe side effects for patients, and these may contribute to the selection of cells that are resistant to antibiotics and anticancer drugs (Vedham et al, 2014; Zorina and Styche, 2015)
Bacteria have an arsenal of proteins and peptides with both antibacterial and antitumoral activity, which can be explored in the search for these new compounds (Karpinski and Adamczak, 2018)
Summary
Global health authorities have had to deal with two significant problems: the alarming number of people suffering from cancer and the rise of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Cancer is the second most prevalent cause of death worldwide (O’Brien-Simpson et al, 2018; Shoombuatong et al, 2018). According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Agency of Research on Cancer [IARC] (2018) in there were about 18.1 million new cases of cancer and 9.6 million deaths. The estimate for AMR is that 700,000 die annually worldwide, and the annual number of deaths is likely to increase to 10 million by 2050 (Arias and Murray, 2009; World-Health-Organisation [WHO], 2018; Ghosh et al, 2019).
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