Targeted deprivation of methionine with engineered Salmonella leads to oncolysis and suppression of metastasis in broad types of animal tumor models.

The strong dependency of almost all malignant tumors on methionine potentially offers a pathway for cancer treatment. We engineer an attenuated strain of Salmonella typhimurium to overexpress an L-methioninase with the aim of specifically depriving tumor tissues of methionine. The engineered microbes target solid tumors and induce a sharp regression in several very divergent animal models of human carcinomas, cause a significant decrease in tumor cell invasion, and essentially eliminate the growth and metastasis of these tumors.

Inhibition of acute leukemia with attenuated Salmonella typhimurium strain VNP20009.

Acute leukemia is a common hematological malignancy. Despite recent promising progress, the prognosis of acute leukemia patients remains to be improved. New therapies are therefore still needed.