Trypanosoma cruzi, cancer and the Cold War

Abstract

In the summer of 1946, the international community of cancer researchers was inspired by the announcement that two Soviet scientists, Nina Kliueva and Grigorii Roskin, had discovered anticancer properties in culture extracts made from the South American protozoan, Trypanosoma cruzi, and had produced a preparation -named after its discoverers KR -which showed clear therapeutic effects on cancer patients. Research teams from various countries enthusiastically pursued the promising new line of investigation. The story of the rise and fall of interest in the anticancer properties of T. cruzi in different countries suggests that during the second half of the twentieth century, the Cold War competition between the superpowers played an important role in shaping the research agendas of cancer studies.

Seroprevalencia de la infección por Trypanosoma cruzi y factores asociados en un área endémica de Venezuela

“…En el contexto sociocultural y epidemiológico, podría ser lógico sugerir que los familiares de los casos seropositivos han vivido en entornos con factores de riesgo para ser infectados con T. cruzi y por lo tanto tienen más probabilidades de ser seropositivos que los familiares de los pacientes seronegativos. Esto explicaría que los pacientes seropositivos tengan una menor probabilidad de padecer cáncer, como consecuencia de la actividad antineoplásica directa de carácter invasiva o indirecta de carác-ter inmunogénico de T. cruzi 29,30 . No obstante, la frecuencia de la asociación positiva entre las formas digestivas de la enfermedad de Chagas y las neoplasias malignas digestivas, han sido reportadas que oscilan entre un 3,4 y un 9,2%, especialmente las esofagopatías 31 .…”

Trypanosoma cruzias an effective cancer antigen delivery vector

“…Later, he published an article demonstrating tumor regression in human patients infected with T. cruzi (38). A growing interest in using T. cruzi to treat cancer was pursued by different research groups (39,40), and T. cruzi preparations for cancer therapy were launched by French and Russian pharmaceutical companies (36). Although similar results were found, the ambiguity of the findings obtained by various investigators regarding efficacy against experimental tumors (41) led to the discontinuation of this line of investigation and commercial distribution of this anticancer compound.…”

“…Inspired by the "malariotherapy," which used infection with Plasmodium to treat neurosyphilis (35), Roskin and colleagues thought that parasitic infections that cause serious diseases produced a "toxin" that could act on and kill tumor cells (36)(37)(38). Almost 10 y after he started his studies, Roskin published an article demonstrating tumor regression after infection with T. cruzi in mice (37).…”

Parasite Infection, Carcinogenesis and Human Malignancy

“…Other species of the genera Opisthorchis and Schistosoma are thought likely to be carcinogenic (Sripa et al, 2007, Pakharukova and Mordvinov, 2016). Intriguingly, Trypanosoma cruzi , the etiological agents of Chagas disease, displays apparently paradoxical roles in malignancy in exerting carcinogenic and anticancer properties (Krementsov, 2009, Sacerdote de et al, 1980). Potential causative roles of other parasitic infections have been postulated (Machicado and Marcos, 2016).…”