Bacterial Systems as a Precision Delivery Platform of Therapeutic Peptides for Cancer Therapy

In recent years, peptide-based therapies have gained remarkable attention as promising tools for cancer treatment, offering notable advantages in specificity, modifiability, and reduced systemic toxicity. Various peptide classesincluding cell-penetrating, tumor-homing, pro-apoptotic, and immune-modulating peptideshave shown appreciable efficacy in selectively targeting cancer cells and modulating immune responses against tumors. Despite this potential, peptide therapies face significant challenges, such as susceptibility to rapid degradation, limited bioavailability, and inadequate accumulation within tumors. To address these issues, bacterial systems have emerged as innovative peptide delivery platforms, improving peptide stability, enhancing localized concentrations, and enabling controlled release directly at tumor sites. This review explores the synergistic potential of therapeutic peptides combined with bacterial delivery systems, with a focus on methods such as bacterial lysis for peptide release, secretion pathways, and peptide surface display. By harnessing the tumor-targeting properties and secretion capabilities of bacteria, these integrated approaches offer promising solutions to overcome the inherent limitations of peptide therapies, positioning them as advanced tools in precision oncology.