Abstract: The use of bacteria for cancer therapy has been gradually recognized as a potential therapeutic strategy, which mainly due to the development of bacterial strains to maintain excellent anti-tumor activity and lower toxicity to host. Bacteria-mediated cancer therapy relies on facultative anaerobes that can survive in well or poorly oxygenated regions and further target tumor. Herein, Salmonella have mainly been applied as gene-delivery vectors, antitumor immune activators and tumor cell death inducers. It can ameliorate the host immune environment, reduce the expression of indoleamine-2, 3-dioxygenase(IDO) and matrix metalloproteinase 9(MMP-9) and regulate the autophagy and apoptosis of tumor cells to exert intrinsic anti-tumor activity.

Key words: salmonella, neoplasms, attenuated strains