Exposure to salmonella was linked with colon cancers: Study

Salmonella infection was connected to colon cancers that started earlier and expanded larger, according to the researchers, who included a team led by Jun Sun from the University of Illinois Chicago.

A recent study linked colon cancer risk and exposure to salmonella bacteria.

Exposure to salmonella was linked with colon cancers: Study (Shutterstock)

The findings of the study were published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine.

Salmonella infection was connected to colon cancers that started earlier and expanded larger, according to the researchers, who included a team led by Jun Sun from the University of Illinois Chicago. The researchers examined human colon cancer tissue samples and animal models.

The study authors first looked at data from a Netherlands-based retrospective study of colon cancer patients that found tissue samples taken during routine colon cancer surgery with salmonella antibodies tended to be from people who had worse colon cancer outcomes.

Using salmonella strains isolated from these tissue samples, Sun and her U.S.-based team studied mice with colon cancer that had been exposed to the bacteria. They observed accelerated tumor growth and larger tumors in mice with salmonella exposure. They also saw that there was increased salmonella translocated to the tumors.

Sun's collaborators in the Netherlands also studied the bacteria in vitro. They combined human cancer cells and pre-cancer cells with the salmonella strain in the lab and measured any growth or changes in the tumor. They saw that even one infection caused transformation and that each salmonella infection exponentially increased the rate of cell transformation.

"The mouse and tissue culture experiments show that salmonella infection had a chronic effect to accelerate tumor growth," said Sun, who also is a member of the University of Illinois Cancer Center at UIC. "This evidence tells us that we need to look closer at salmonella exposure as an environmental risk factor for chronic diseases, such as colon cancer."

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