Exposure to a bacterial toxin in childhood can play a key role in the global rise of the early beginning of Colorectal cancerAccording to a new study.
Study, Posted on April 23 in naturenoted that a toxin called Colibactin, produced by certain strains of E. coli Who live in the colon and the rectum, is able to modify DNA.
Researchers at the University of California reported that an early exposure to Colibactin leaves a unique mark on the DNA of colon cells – the one that could increase your chances of obtaining colorectal cancer before 50 years.
However, it is important to note that the study has not proven that the Colibactin caused cancer, it only identified a link between mutations linked to toxin and early disease.
“These mutation models are a kind of historical file in the genome, and they indicate early exposure to the Colibactin as an engine of early disease,” said the main author of the study, Ludmil Alexandrov, professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of California San Diego.
“If someone acquires one of these driver’s changes when he is 10 years old, he could be decades in advance for the development of colorectal cancer, obtaining him at 40 years instead of 60,” he said in a press release.
Colorectal cancer includes two types of cancer: colon cancer and rectum cancer.
Generally, he spreads more slowly That many other cancers, which often linger in the colon or rectum for months or even years before spreading elsewhere. This means that if it is detected early, treatment is generally very effective.
While colorectal cancer levels have dropped in the elderly, They climbed in people under the age of 50 – both in Canada and around the world – in recent decades, for reasons that are still not clear.
If current trends continue, it becomes the main cause of cancer death in young adults by 2030.
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“The fastest population subset of the population with colorectal cancer, and mainly rectum cancer, are between 28 and 39 years old,” said Barry Stein, president and chief executive officer of Colectal Cancer Canada.
“And we have no reason to understand why these people are diagnosed or why they receive colorectal cancer first.”
The question of why this happens is what led researchers from the University of California to dig more deeply. Stein explained that there is already evidence connecting intestinal bacteria to colorectal cancer – whether it is a cause or simply a correlation – and said that this study adds another piece to the puzzle.
To help explain the medical mystery, study researchers examined 981 colorectal cancer genomes of patients with early and late diseases in 11 countries (including Canada) with different risk of colorectal cancer levels.
The researchers have found that the Colibactin leaves behind DNA mutation models in colorectal cancer which are 3.3 times more frequent in adults diagnosed before 40 years than in diagnosed after 70, and these models are particularly frequent in countries with high levels of early colorectal cancer.
Previous studies, including previous work in the Alexandrov laboratory, have found changes related to Colibactin in around 10 to 15% of all cases of colorectal cancer.
BU, these studies have focused on the cases of late appearance or have not made the difference between early and late diseases. This latest study is the first to specifically highlight a significant increase in changes related to the Colibactin in cases with early early, the researchers said.
The researchers found that the damage caused by the Colibactin seem to be surprisingly struck early. By analyzing the molecular “timing” of different models of DNA mutation, they were able to show that changes related to Colibactin tend to appear early in the tumor development process, often during the first decade of life.
This means that the bacteria producing Colibactin could get involved from the start in the digestive systems of children, quietly modifying their DNA in order to increase the risk of developing colorectal cancer later in life, long before warning signs emerge, the study said.
Dr. Shuji Ogino, head of the molecular pathological epidemiology program in Brigham and Women’s Hospital of Boston, described the results of the “fascinating” study.
“Cancer is developing in a long -term process. Thus people have cancer at 40, 45 years old or 60, right? They have a symptom, go to the doctor, “he said. “But in reality, it is likely that the process begins earlier. We don’t know yet when it starts, but it could start early, even as a baby.”
And that’s what the study points, he added.
Although he is too early to say, Stein said that if there was a link between bacteria and colorectal cancer, he can have “very deep effects”.
“For example, these are perhaps things we could find out when we screen the disease in terms of prevention of the disease in the first place,” he said. “Or maybe it is something that, thanks to the treatment, by developing a vaccine or by developing a drug, we can attack these types of bacteria, which could stop the cause of colon cancer.”
In the meantime, the researchers say that there are still a lot of things that we do not know – and this discovery opens the door to a brand new set of questions.
How are children exposed exactly to bacteria producing Colibactin, and is there a way to reduce or prevent this exhibition? Some diets, environments or lifestyle factors make the body more welcoming for these microbes? And how can someone even discover if he already transports these kinds of changes?
The team actively digs these questions. They explore various theories, especially if probiotics could help to eliminate harmful strains safely.
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