Role of the Microbiome in Malignancy

Abstract

The conceptual underpinning of carcinogenesis has been strongly influenced by an expanded understanding of the human microbiome. Malignancy risks in diverse organs have been uniquely tied to aspects of the resident microbiota in different organs and systems including the colon, lungs, pancreas, ovaries, uterine cervix, and stomach; other organs are increasingly linked to maladaptive aspects of the microbiome as well. In this way, the maladaptive microbiome may be termed an oncobiome. Microbe-driven inflammation, anti-inflammation, and mucosal protection failure, as well as diet-induced microbiome derangement are all mechanisms that influence malignancy risk. Therefore, they also offer potential avenues of diagnostic and therapeutic intervention to modify malignancy risk, and to perhaps interrupt progression toward cancer in different sites. Each of these mechanisms will be explored using colorectal malignancy as a prototype condition to demonstrate the microbiome's role in carcinogenesis.

Keywords: colorectal cancer; dysbiosis; malignancy; microbiome; surveillance.

FIG. 1.

This figure demonstrates the complex interplay of microbiome elements with different aspects of the immune system that may maladaptively lead to malignancy genesis. This dynamic is focused on colorectal cancer but has broad applicability to epithelial malignancies in general.