Pioneer work by Prof. Cossart among others, studying the interactions between pathogenic bacteria and host cells (this discipline was termed Cellular Microbiology), was fundamental to determine the bacterial infection processes and to improve our knowledge of different cellular mechanisms. The study of bacteria–host interactions also involves in vivo host immune responses, which can be manipulated by bacteria, being these last potent tools for different immunotherapies. During the last years, tumour immunotherapies, mainly the use of antibodies that target immune checkpoints [checkpoint inhibitors (CPI)], have been a revolution in oncology, allowing the treatment of tumours otherwise with very bad prognosis. In the same direction, bacteria inoculations have been used from long to treat some cancers; for example, non‐muscle‐invasive bladder cancer can be successfully treated with the bacterium Bacillus Calmette Guerin (BCG). More recently, it has been shown that microbiota could determine the success of CPI immunotherapies and intense research is being performed in order to use bacteria as immunotherapy tools due to their ability to activate the immune system. In this context, to expand the knowledge of the bacteria–immune system interactions will be fundamental to improve tumour immunotherapies.

中文翻译：

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从细胞微生物学到基于细菌的下一代癌症免疫疗法。

Cossart教授等人的开创性工作，研究了致病细菌与宿主细胞之间的相互作用（该学科称为细胞微生物学），对于确定细菌感染过程和提高我们对不同细胞机制的了解至关重要。细菌与宿主之间相互作用的研究还涉及体内宿主免疫反应，这些反应可以被细菌操纵，这是针对不同免疫疗法的最后有效工具。在最近几年中，肿瘤免疫疗法，主要是使用靶向免疫检查点的抗体[检查点抑制剂（CPI）]，已成为肿瘤学的一场革命，从而使肿瘤的治疗预后很差。在同一方向上，细菌接种已被用于治疗某些癌症。例如，非细菌性膀胱癌可以用卡介芽孢杆菌芽孢杆菌（BCG）成功治疗。最近，研究表明微生物群可以决定CPI免疫疗法的成功，并且由于细菌具有激活免疫系统的能力，因此正在进行大量研究以将细菌用作免疫治疗工具。在这种情况下，扩大细菌与免疫系统相互作用的知识将是改善肿瘤免疫疗法的基础。