New strategies for cancer gene therapy: progress and opportunities

1. To date, cancer persists as one of the most devastating diseases worldwide. Problems such as metastasis and tumour resistance to chemotherapy and radiotherapy have seriously limited the therapeutic effects of existing clinical treatments. 2. To address these problems, cancer gene therapy has been developing over the past two decades, specifically designed to deliver therapeutic genes to treat cancers using vector systems. So far, a number of genes and delivery vehicles have been evaluated and significant progress has been made with several gene therapy modalities in clinical trials. However, the lack of an ideal gene delivery system remains a major obstacle for the successful translation of regimen to the clinic. 3. Recent understanding of hypoxic and necrotic regions within solid tumours and rapid development of recombinant DNA technology have reignited the idea of using anaerobic bacteria as novel gene delivery systems. These bacterial vectors have unique advantages over other delivery systems and are likely to become the vector of choice for cancer gene therapy in the near future. 4. Meanwhile, complicated tumour pathophysiology and associated metastasis make it hard to rely on a single therapeutic modality for complete tumour eradication. Therefore, the combination of cancer gene therapy with other conventional treatments has become paramount. 5. The present review introduces important cancer gene therapy strategies and major vector systems that have been studied so far with an emphasis on bacteria-mediated cancer gene therapy. In addition, exemplary combined therapies are briefly reviewed.