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. 2020 Jan 15:9:476.
doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2019.00476. eCollection 2019.

The Oral Microbiota May Have Influence on Oral Cancer

Ling Zhang  1   2   3 , Yuan Liu  1 , Hua Jun Zheng  4 , Chen Ping Zhang  1
Affiliations

The Oral Microbiota May Have Influence on Oral Cancer

Ling Zhang et al. Front Cell Infect Microbiol. .

Abstract

The oral microbiota plays an important role in the human microbiome and human health, and imbalances between microbes and their hosts can lead to oral and systemic diseases and chronic inflammation, which is usually caused by bacteria and contributes to cancer. There may be a relationship between oral bacteria and oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC); however, this relationship has not been thoroughly characterized. Therefore, in this study, we compared the microbiota compositions between tumor sites and opposite normal tissues in buccal mucosal of 50 patients with OSCC using the 16S rDNA sequencing. Richness and diversity of bacteria were significantly higher in tumor sites than in the control tissues. Cancer tissues were enriched in six families (Prevotellaceae, Fusobacteriaceae, Flavobacteriaceae, Lachnospiraceae, Peptostreptococcaceae, and Campylobacteraceae) and 13 genera, including Fusobacterium, Alloprevotella and Porphyromonas. At the species level, the abundances of Fusobacterium nucleatum, Prevotella intermedia, Aggregatibacter segnis, Capnocytophaga leadbetteri, Peptostreptococcus stomatis, and another five species were significantly increased, suggesting a potential association between these bacteria and OSCC. Furthermore, the functional prediction revealed that genes involved in bacterial chemotaxis, flagellar assembly and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) biosynthesis which are associated with various pathological processes, were significantly increased in the OSCC group. Overall, oral bacterial profiles showed significant difference between cancer sites and normal tissue of OSCC patients, which might be onsidered diagnostic markers and treatment targets. Our study has been registered in the Chinese clinical trial registry (ChiCTR1900025253, http://www.chictr.org.cn/index.aspx).

Keywords: 16S rDNA sequencing; Fusobacterium nucleatum; Peptostreptococcus stomatis; Prevotella intermedia; oral microbiota; oral squamous cell carcinoma.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Comparison of bacterial richness, evenness and diversity between OSCC and Control groups. (A) OTU number, (B) ACE index, (C) Shannon even index and (D) Shannon diversity index.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Principal component analysis (PCA) analysis with Bray-Curtis dissimilarity based on genera between the microbiota of the two groups. Points represent samples. Samples that are more similar to one another are ordinated closer together. The groups show significant differences in similarity tested by ANOSIM (PANOSIM < 0.001).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Comparative taxonomic profile of the OSCC and Control groups at genus level. The genera with significant richness difference (P < 0.05, computed by STAMP) between the two groups are shown.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Comparative taxonomic profile of the OSCC and Control groups at species level. The species with significant richness difference (P < 0.05, computed by STAMP) between the two groups are shown.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Comparative functional profile of oral microbiota between OSCC and Control groups. Microbial functions were predicted using PICRUSt at the third level of the KEGG pathway, and statistically analyzed by STAMP. KEGG pathways with significant abundance difference (P < 0.05) are shown.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Changes in the microbiota composition associated with OSCC. Species names labeled with red indicate bacteria enriched in normal sites, and species names labeled with blue indicate bacteria increased in tumor sites.
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