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KMID : 0377619700180010007
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Korean Jungang Medical Journal
1970 Volume.18 No. 1 p.7 ~ p.8
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THE PRODUCTION OF CANCERIGENIC SUBSTANCES BY CERTAIN BACTERIA
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Fernand, LOT
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Abstract
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For about fifteen years Dr. Lucien Mallet has been making a thorough investigation of the pollution of vital media on land and at sea by polybenzene hydrocarbons of the 3-4 benzopyrene type, which are known to be particularly cancerigenic. He has concluded that apart from the commonly known pollution due to industrial activity, another form exists that is natural in origin and produced by certain bacteria that have proved capable of synthesizing hydrocarbons of this kind.
Several scientists have collaborated on this research, headed by Mme M. Heros, of the Prefecture de Police Laboratory, which is particularly interested in problems of pollution (Professors Henri Moureu and Paul Chovin), and Dr. Tissier, technical director of the vaccine section of the Laboratoire de la Sante Publique. The following have also contributed to these investigations: the Institute Medico-Legal (Professor Piedelievra), the Hydrographical Department of the Navy (Chief Engineer Goudeheim), the Meteorological Office, the Marine Biology Laboratory at Dinard directed by Professor Roger Heim(of the Museum), the Villefranche-sur-Mer Zoological Station, the Pont- et- Chaussees (Public Works) Laboratory at Fatouville, the Charbonnages de France(French Mines) The ´list is not complete but gives some idea of the scope of the work, which has involved prospection of many sites-forests, the Seine Estuary, the Mediterranean coasts, and the Davis Straits among others.
To start with, two laboratory observations: 3-4 benzopyrene could be fixed by B.C.G.; anaerobic bacteria (living without air), like clostridium putride, fixed it selectively.
In view of the remarkably high affinity of the plankton medium for these hydrocarbons and the fact that the lipids present in the organisms of vegetable plankton are solvents of these hydrocarbons, it night be wondered whether such bacteria, particularly the one living without air, do not synthesize them spontaneously. A first proof would be their presence in old sediments cut off from any form of outside pollution. Their presence was discovered in 19 64 by Dr. Mallet and Charles Schneider, in the limestone of an underground quarry 50 metres down: the sample (taken electrically, with no risk of contamination, and then analyzed by chromatography and spectrography) contained benzopyrene amounting to 1. 95 micrograms per 100 grams. It was thus legitimate to consider that the substance must be biological in origin and correspond to the plankton flora of the silex and limestone deposits.
It has also been found in fragments of carbon containing sediments such as boghead and in sand and mud in greenland waters. It has also been detected in plankton growing thickly in the lagoon of a particularly interesting atoll, Clipperton, in the Pacific and situated about thirteen hundred kilometres from the nearest coasts (Mexico). It is uninhabited and off the
busy sea and air routes. It is particularly remote from any pollution connected with industrial sources since it has been completely hemmed in by its ring of coral for the past hundred years. Analyses of samples taken by Dr. Niaussat have shown from 3. 4 to 4 micrograms of benzopyrene per 100 grams.
Most significantly, it has been observed that samples of earth from forests in the French, Massif Central, poor in benzopyrene, can be enriched through cultures of clostridium.
Other experiments were carried out in the laboratory cultures of anaerobia (clostridium isolated from various coastal planktons) were placed in sterile flasks containing total lipids extracted from marine plankton, with sea water as nutrient broth. The cultures were incubated for two weeks and then samples were treated with formol and analyzed.
In all cases, small amounts of 3-4 benzopyrene were detected, ranging from 12 to 800 microgram per 100 gram dry weight. The size of the last figure (800) is worthy of note.
These delicate assays were carried out by chromatography and spectrography improved on to a high degree by Mme Heros in the Rue de Dantzig laboratory of the Prefecture de Police.
Other series of experiments have shown that the addition of antibiotics which practically eliminate bacteria, checks the formation of benzopyrene or reduces it in amount.
The hypothesis as to its biological origin might seem to be incompatible with the fact that coastal plankton is far more liable to pollution than the marine type. But as Professor Brisou has shown, if coastal plankton is frequently polluted by anaerobia, plankton out at sea is far less so and biosynthesis is therefore correspondingly less active in this case.
It has also been noted that in the presence of aerobic bacteria, there seems to be a contrary phenomenon operative in nature that destroys cancer producing hydrocarbons. Further work is nowbeing done on this question at the Dinard laboratory by Miss M. L Priou and Michel Leon. It has been observed that when mud is maintained at laboratory temperature and in the presence of clostridium type anaerobic bacteria, it does produce the substance whereas regression is observed when flora has a high percentage of aero bias. It is very possible that a balance is established in nature, so that hydrocarbons always existed and are maintained at a more or less average rate.
3-4 benzopyrene is not a toxic substance. It is dangerous because it attacks adenine, one of the four bases of desoxy-ribonucleic acid. This results in chromosome alterations, disturbances in the message transmitted by RNA and, finally, in the appearance and proliferation of abnormal cells.
As post-mortem analyses have revealed, cancerigenic hydrocarbons are present in all the organs, especially in the liver. spleen, kidneys, lungs and bronchial tubes, esophagus. It was hitherto believed that the substance had been introduced from the outside; and it is a fact that no one to-day can escape the pollution invading, the biosphere on an increasing sale.
But in the light of recent observations, it appears that auto-pollution must occur in the case of 3-4 benzopyrene type hydrocarbons, particularly in the digestive tract. Especially in the region of the intestine-rich in bacteria of all kinds, some of which are able to synthesize the dangerous substance from fatty acids.
Now such endogenous pollution could be counter acted inside the organism itself: treatment would involve action by aerobic bacteria, since as observed above, some seem to be able to check the action of anaerobia that produce benzopyrene, which when eliminated via the kidneys could be determined quantitatively in the urine and thus kept under control.
That is the position up to date. If the hypotheses formulated prove to be accurate, as experiments seem to be indicating so far, it will be a discovery of the greatest importance.
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