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. 2023 Jun;168(6):1443-1452.
doi: 10.1002/ohn.211. Epub 2023 Jan 24.

Microbial Changes Associated With Oral Cavity Cancer Progression

Kenneth Yan  1 , Samuel Auger  2 , Ashley Diaz  3 , Julia Naman  2 , Ramya Vemulapalli  2 , Rifat Hasina  2 , Evgeny Izumchenko  4 , Benjamin Shogan  4 , Nishant Agrawal  2
Affiliations

Microbial Changes Associated With Oral Cavity Cancer Progression

Kenneth Yan et al. Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2023 Jun.

Abstract

Objective: To examine the oral microbiome in the context of oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma.

Study design: Basic science research.

Setting: Academic medical center.

Methods: Oral swabs were collected from patients presenting to the operating room for management of oral cavity squamous cell carcinoma and from age- and sex-matched control patients receiving surgery for unrelated benign conditions. 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) sequencing was performed on genetic material obtained from swabs. A bacterial rRNA gene library was created and sequence reads were sorted into taxonomic units.

Results: Thirty-one control patients (17 males) and 35 cancer patients (21 males) were enrolled. Ages ranged from 23 to 89 (median 63) for control patients and 35 to 86 (median 66) for cancer patients. Sixty-one percent of control patients and 63% of cancer patients were smokers. 16S analyses demonstrated a significant decrease in Streptococcus genera in oral cancer patients (34.11% vs 21.74% of the population, p = .04). Increases in Fusobacterium, Peptostreptococcus, Parvimonas, and Neisseria were also found. The abundance of these bacteria correlated with tumor T-stage.

Conclusion: 16S rRNA sequencing demonstrated changes in bacterial populations in oral cavity cancer and its progression compared to noncancer controls. We found increases in bacteria genera that correspond with tumor stage-Fusobacteria, Peptostreptococcus, Parvimonas, Neisseria, and Treponema. These data suggest that oral cancer creates an environment to facilitate foreign bacterial growth, rather than implicating a specific bacterial species in carcinogenesis. These bacteria can be employed as a potential marker for tumor progression or interrogated to better characterize the tumor microenvironment.

Keywords: 16S sequencing; microbiome; oral cavity cancer.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: None.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Richness in oral cavity cancer versus oral cavity controls. There is no difference in richness between cancer and control patients.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Diversity in oral cavity cancer versus oral cavity controls. There is no difference in diversity between cancer and control patients.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Distribution of bacterial phyla. (A) Overall distribution in cancer compared to controls. (B) Distribution across specimens segregated by controls, early stage (T1/T2) cancer, and late-stage (T3/T4) cancer (C) box plots for individual phyla (*p < .05).
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Distribution of bacterial genera. (A) Overall distribution in cancer compared to controls. (B) Distribution across specimens segregated by controls, early stage (T1/T2) cancer, and late-stage (T3/T4) cancer (C) box plots for individual phyla (*p < .05).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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