Objective
The project addresses the important problem of the high rate of colorectal cancer (CRC) in Europe. The main aim is to evaluate the potential CRC-preventing activity of a symbiotic (pro + pre-biotic combination) in human volunteers.
1 will achieve the objective. In vitro studies to identify symbiotic combinations offering the greatest competitive advantages in the colon ecosystem
2. Establishing the ant carcinogenic effect of the most promising symbiotic combination in a rat colon cancer model
3. Refining a range of novel biomarkers for CRC
4. Evaluating in human subjects (adenoma patients) using the above biomarkers, the potential of a symbiotic combination to prevent colorectal cancer. The results from the project will contribute to the formulation of improved dietary advice for Europeans.
The biomarker network:
The biomarker network has validated existing and novel assays that are related to the cancer process. The method of human faecal water preparation has been re-evaluated and adapted for this particular project. A method to prepare faecal water from rat faeces was developed. Of the whole set of biomarkers, clear correlations between some of them could be detected. There is a distinct difference between some biomarkers with regard to the disease state of the patient (polyps or former cancer patient).
In vitro work:
A range of pre- and probiotics has been incubated in in vitro fermentations as pure culture, batch fermentation or in a model mimicking the human gut. Gut fermentation products from the selected pre- and probiotics were tested in assays that were developed to measure different stages of the cancer process (genotoxicity, tumour promotion, metastasis). The fermentation supernatants from the symbiotic selected for the rat and human dietary intervention trial (Raftilose Synergy1 with Bifidobacterium lactis Bb12 and Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG) showed a high biological activity that could be involved in tumour suppression.
Long and short term rat carcinogenesis study:
Pre-, Pro, and Synbiotics reduce the number of tumours in azoxymethane-treated rats. Several processes are involved in this chemopreventive activity, such as altered immune response, changes in gene expression and faecal water genotoxicity. The formerly used preneoplastic marker for colon cancer, aberrant crypt foci, have been re-evaluated for their predictive value and an alternative marker, mucin-depleted foci, is proposed and evaluated for its potential use.
Human dietary intervention study:
The effect of 12 week supplementation of a well-selected symbiotic in a group of polyp patients or resected colon cancer patients was investigated on general health markers and specific cancer-related biomarkers in blood, faeces and biopsy samples. The symbiotic was well-tolerated by the human volunteers and the probiotic that was administered could be recovered from the faeces. This study showed that for some biomarkers there was a clear baseline difference between polyps patients and cancer patients, without dietary intervention. The supplementation with the symbiotic revealed a protective effect on biomarkers involved in the mucosal cell proliferation, genetic effects and toxicological defence mechanism but the extent of protection is different in the two patient groups.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- medical and health sciences basic medicine immunology
- medical and health sciences clinical medicine oncology colorectal cancer
- natural sciences biological sciences ecology ecosystems
- engineering and technology industrial biotechnology bioprocessing technologies fermentation
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
3300 TIENEN
Belgium
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.