Future developments in electroporation: Recombinant Clostridia as viable and targeted tumour therapeutics

The importance of bacteria in everyday life is underscored by their wide usage in numerous processes and applications, such as alcohol and food fermentation, waste disposal, and production of therapeutic molecules and vaccines. However, the recognition of the potential usefulness of bacteria as bona fide therapeutics has been less enthusiastic. In the quest to develop novel tumour therapeutics that can be specifically targeted and have greater efficacy and fewer side effects, recombinant clostridia are regaining attention as viable therapeutic candidates. The importance of the Clostridia in terms of their innate potential role in tumour targeted therapy has prompted many studies. These include their mechanisms of tumour targeting, the way they cause oncolysis, and methods in genetic manipulation of these organisms. This chapter summarizes the recent advances in the use of bacteria as viable therapeutics, and discusses how these advances could be potentially improved by the use of genetic engineering tools, such as electroporation (more detailed methods, see chapters 5 and 8). We predict that recombinant Clostridia could potentially provide an excellent platfom1 for the development of a range of bacterial-targeted therapeutics for a variety of solid tumours.