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Bacterial toxin may contribute to rise in early-onset colorectal cancer
2025-05-01 06:45:03| Spiritual Career Counseling
University of California - San DiegoApr 23 2025In an effort to explain a modern medical mystery, an international team of researchers led by the University of California San Diego has identified a potential microbial culprit behind the alarming rise in early-onset colorectal cancer: a bacterial toxin called colibactin.Produced by certain strains of Escherichia coli that reside in the colon and rectum, colibactin is a toxin capable of altering DNA. Now, scientists report that exposure to colibactin in early childhood imprints a distinct genetic signature on the DNA of colon cells-one that may increase the risk of developing colorectal cancer before the age of 50.The new study, published on April 23 in Nature, analyzed 981 colorectal cancer genomes from patients with both early- and late-onset disease across 11 countries with varying colorectal cancer risk levels. The findings show that colibactin leaves behind specific patterns of DNA mutations that were 3.3 times more common in early-o...
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