Alternativa biotecnológica contra el cáncer: Parasporinas de Bacillus thuringiensis

Abstract

Currently, cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. The latest reports from the World Health Organization (WHO) of 2018 show alarming figures that indicate 18.1 million new cases and recorded 9.6 million deaths from cancer, with a 5-year prevalence of 43.8 million patients. The low efficiency of conventional cancer treatments has generated scientific research focused on identifying new products with specificity to efficiently treat this disease. Various bacterial metabolites such as parasporins (PS), cytotoxic proteins of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), have been successfully applied against different cancer cell lines in the past 19 years. Therefore, it is important in this work to contextualize cancer as a global health problem, and briefly mention the conventional treatments used. The most relevant investigations to isolate Bt strains producing PS are described, as well as the classification, production and purification of these metabolites. Finally, the nature of the high cytotoxicity of the 19 PS reported to date is mentioned, emphasizing the feasibility of its application as an alternative high-cytotoxicity cancer therapy, and with great potential to treat various types of cancer.