The human body is full of an extensive number of commensal microbes, consisting of bacteria, viruses, and fungi, collectively termed the human microbiome. The initial acquisition of microbiota occurs from both the external and maternal environments, and the vast majority of them colonize the gastrointestinal tract (GIT).

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has currently caused the pandemic with a high progressive speed and has been considered as the global public health crisis in 2020. ...

Introduction: More than two billion people are latently infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Most tuberculosis (TB)-subunit vaccines currently in various stages of clinical trials are designed for prevention of active TB, but not to prevent reactivation of latent TB-infection. Thus, there is an urgent need for an effective multi-stage vaccine based on early-expressed and latently-expressed antigens that prevents both acute and latent infections. Areas covered: Here, we reviewed the published pre-clinical and clinical studies of multi-stage subunit vaccines against TB, and the protective capacities of the vaccines were compared with BCG, either alone or in combination with different vaccine delivery systems/adjuvants. The results revealed that multi-stage subunit vaccines induced a wide variety of immune-responses to all forms of TB, including CD8 + T-cell-mediated cytolytic and IFN-γ responses comparable to those induced by the BCG. They could potentially be used as a booster vaccine to improve the efficacy of the BCG. Expert commentary: Multi-stage TB-vaccines could boost BCG-primed immunity, decrease bacterial loads and provide efficient protection against progressive TB-infection, especially in the latent phase. These types of vaccines administered before and after TB-infection can act as pre-exposure, post-exposure and even therapeutic vaccines. In the near future, these vaccines could provide a new generation of prime-vaccines or BCG prime-boosters.

Cancer remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality irrespective of the type of conventional chemotherapy. Therefore, there is an urgent need for new and effective anticancer therapeutic agents. Bacterial proteins and their derivative peptides appear as a promising approach for cancer treatment. Several, including an amphipathic, α-helical, 28-amino acid peptide derived from azurin, a 128-amino acid copper-containing redox protein secreted from Pseudomonas aeruginosa, show clinical promise in the treatment of adult and pediatric solid tumors. The peptide, p28, is a post-translational, multi-target anticancer agent that preferentially enters a wide variety of solid tumor cells. Mechanistically, after entry, p28 has two major avenues of action. It binds to both wild-type and mutant p53 protein, inhibiting constitutional morphogenic protein 1 (Cop1)-mediated ubiquitination and proteasomal degradation of p53. This results in increased levels of p53, which induce cell-cycle arrest at G2/M and an eventual apoptosis that results in tumor cell shrinkage and death. In addition, p28 also preferentially enters nascent endothelial cells and decreases the phosphorylation of FAK and Akt inhibiting endothelial cell motility and migration. Here, we review the current basic and clinical evidence suggesting the potential of p28 as a cancer therapeutic peptide.