Organism Found in Cat Excrement Helps Cure Cancer: Study

Parasite found in cats' excrement helps fight against cancer, finds a study.

Experts at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth University discovered the single cellular organism, Toxoplasma gondii, or T. gondii that live in the intestinal tract in cats trigger immune responses in the body that help destroy cancer cells. Diseases like cancer arrest body's defense mechanisms to fight against infections .They found in the presence of T.gondii, our body produces cytotoxic cells that inhibit growth of cancer tumors..

"The biology of this organism is inherently different from other microbe-based immunotherapeutic strategies that typically just tickle immune cells from the outside. By gaining preferential access to the inside of powerful innate immune cell types, our mutated strain of  T gondii reprograms the natural power of the immune system to clear tumor cells and cancer," said Barbara Fox, co-author and senior research associate of Microbiology and Immunology at the Dartmouth University, in a news statement.

T.gondii can be developed as an anti-cancer and immunotherapeutic vaccine but, for this its Toxoplasma gene must be suppressed to prevent the parasite from multiplying in the hosts' body. The researchers named the vaccine 'cps' and tested it on cancer models using the parasite's replicated strain.

After administering the vaccine in a patients' body, it helped stimulate vaccine responses to curb tumor formation. The university's past research on rodent models also revealed the vaccine made from T.gondii was extremely effective in curing advanced form of melanoma and ovarian cancer.

"Cps stimulates amazingly effective immunotherapy against cancers, superior to anything seen before. The ability of cps to communicate in different and unique ways with the cancer and special cells of the immune system breaks the control that cancer has leveraged over the immune system," said David J. Bzik, study author and professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth.

The authors believe the new method holds promise in increasing survival rate of cancer patients by eliminating cancer cells. They add further investigation is needed to detect the exact molecular mechanisms and pathways in the parasite before implementing its use in vaccines.