In recent years, synthetic biology has been widely applied to engineer and program cellular behaviors. Using this approach, bacteria can be designed to express immunotherapeutic agents, improve tumor targeting, and deliver therapeutic payloads directly to tumor sites. To further improve efficacy, strategies such as hypoxia-responsive promoters, bacterial swarming, and extracellular vesicles (EVs) have been investigated, along with the synergistic effects of combining bacterial therapy with other treatments (e.g., photodynamic therapy, chemotherapy, immune checkpoint inhibitors). This review summarizes recent advances in synthetic biology for bacteria-based cancer immunotherapies, focusing on how bacterial agents activate the immune system and the engineering strategies used to achieve tumor targeting.
Keywords: Synthetic biology; bacteria-based immunotherapy; cancer treatment; immune system activation; personalized medicine; tumor microenvironment.