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Editorial
. 2020 Oct;8(19):1257.
doi: 10.21037/atm-20-2723.

Of fungi and men: role of fungi in pancreatic cancer carcinogenesis

Heling Wang  1 , Mjriam Capula  2 , Bastiaan P Krom  1 , Dicky Yee  3 , Elisa Giovannetti  2   3 , Dongmei Deng  1
Affiliations
Editorial

Of fungi and men: role of fungi in pancreatic cancer carcinogenesis

Heling Wang et al. Ann Transl Med. 2020 Oct.
No abstract available

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form (available at http://dx.doi.org/10.21037/atm-20-2723). The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Translocation of fungi (which might also interact with bacteria) from gut mycobiome to the microenvironment of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) results in increased tumor growth through activation of the complement system. Mannose-binding lectin (MBL) bound to fungi such as Malassezia initiates cleavage of complement factor C3 releasing subunit C3a. The subunit C3a interacts with C3a receptors (C3aR) found on tumor cells promoting tumor growth. Conversely, ablation of mycobiome affected the activity of gemcitabine, suggesting a potential role of fungi in chemoresistance. Remarkably, prognosis was improved in MBL-/- deficient mice compared to WT-mice. This was in agreement with the observation that low expression of MBL2 mRNA is associated with significantly longer survival in PDAC patients, as shown by the Kaplan-Meier curves in the PDAC samples in the TCGA database (Dataset Tumor Pancreatic adenocarcinoma – TCGA-178), produced with the cutoff method “scan” by the R2 online genomics and visualization platform. Thirty-two samples were omitted from the analysis due to missing survival data.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

  • The fungal mycobiome promotes pancreatic oncogenesis via activation of MBL.
    Aykut B, Pushalkar S, Chen R, Li Q, Abengozar R, Kim JI, Shadaloey SA, Wu D, Preiss P, Verma N, Guo Y, Saxena A, Vardhan M, Diskin B, Wang W, Leinwand J, Kurz E, Kochen Rossi JA, Hundeyin M, Zambrinis C, Li X, Saxena D, Miller G. Aykut B, et al. Nature. 2019 Oct;574(7777):264-267. doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1608-2. Epub 2019 Oct 2. Nature. 2019. PMID: 31578522 Free PMC article.

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