Probiotics lead to a new frontier in tumor fighting: tumor vaccines based on probiotics

Cancer remains one of the leading causes of mortality, posing a significant threat to human health and consistently serving as a focal point for scientific research. In recent years, immunotherapy has garnered increasing attention as a promising approach to cancer treatment, leading to substantial improvements in patient outcomes. Among the various immunotherapeutic strategies, tumor vaccines have emerged as a particularly innovative field. Research on tumor vaccines has focused on improving their immunogenicity and safety, aiming to elicit stronger and more durable antitumor immune responses. Probiotics, as bacteria that are “foreign” to the body, can induce a variety of beneficial responses and stimulate numerous positive biological effects, holding significant promise in the field of immunotherapy. Research on probiotic-based tumor vaccines has illustrated the unique advantages of in situ vaccines, neoantigenic vaccines, and oral vaccines with specific routes of administration, each of which has its own advantages. Owing to advancements in biosynthetic technologies and the inherent plasticity of probiotics, probiotics can be used as carriers or components that offer safety benefits and a range of health-promoting effects. Moreover, accumulating evidence suggests that probiotic-based tumor vaccines may be even more effective when combined with other therapeutic modalities, such as radiation therapy.