How do oral bacteria make colorectal cancer more aggressive?

Log in with your Medical News Today account to create or edit your custom homepage, catch-up on your opinions notifications and set your newsletter preferences.Sign up for a free Medical News Today account to customize your medical and health news experiences.Tests have shown that around a third of people who develop colorectal cancer also have the bacterium, which has the name Fusobacterium nucleatum. Their cancer also tends to be more aggressive, but it was not clear why until the recent study.A paper that now features in the journal EMBO Reports reveals how the microorganism promotes the growth of cancer cells but not that of noncancerous cells.The findings should help to clarify why some colorectal cancers develop much faster than others, say the researchers who hail from Columbia University in the City of New York.The team also identified a protein that could form the basis of a test for more aggressive cancers and could lead to new treatments for colorectal and other cancers.According to figures from the American Cancer Society, around 1 in 22 men and 1 in 24 women in the United States will receive a diagnosis of colorectal cancer at some point in their lives.At the start of 2016, there were approximately 1.5 million people in the U.S. with a history of colorectal cancer, some of whom were cancer free.Colorectal cancer develops from uncontrolled growth and survival of abnormal cells in the colon or rectum, which are the final sections of the digestive, or gastrointestinal, tract.The colon absorbs water and nutrients from what is left of food after it has traveled through the stomach and small intestine. nucleatum from being able to attach to cancer cells, which stopped them growing so fast.Another set of tests also revealed that the microbe stimulates cancer cells to make more Annexin A1, which in turn attracts more F. There might also be opportunities for new treatments for colorectal and other cancers that target the protein.Your privacy is important to us.Healthline Media UK Ltd, Brighton, UK.© 2004-2019 All rights reserved.