Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2023 Dec 12:13:1299977.
doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2023.1299977. eCollection 2023.

Gut microbiome: decision-makers in the microenvironment of colorectal cancer

Jingrun Han #  1 , Biao Zhang #  1   2 , Yongnian Zhang #  3 , Tianyi Yin  1 , Yuying Cui  1   2   4 , Jinming Liu  1 , Yanfei Yang  1 , Huiyi Song  1   2   4 , Dong Shang  1   2   4
Affiliations
Review

Gut microbiome: decision-makers in the microenvironment of colorectal cancer

Jingrun Han et al. Front Cell Infect Microbiol. .

Abstract

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a common malignancy of the gastrointestinal tract, accounting for the second most common cause of gastrointestinal tumors. As one of the intestinal barriers, gut bacteria form biofilm, participate in intestinal work, and form the living environment of intestinal cells. Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) of the gut bacteria in a large number of CRC patients has been established, enabling specific microbial signatures to be associated with colorectal adenomato-carcinoma. Gut bacteria are involved in both benign precursor lesions (polyps), in situ growth and metastasis of CRC. Therefore, the term tumorigenic bacteria was proposed in 2018, such as Escherichia coli, Fusobacterium nucleatum, enterotoxigenic Bacteroides fragilis, etc. Meanwhile, bacteria toxins (such as cytolethal distending toxin (CDT), Colibactin (Clb), B. fragilis toxin) affect the tumor microenvironment and promote cancer occurrence and tumor immune escape. It is important to note that there are differences in the bacteria of different types of CRC. In this paper, the role of tumorigenic bacteria in the polyp-cancer transformation and the effects of their secreted toxins on the tumor microenvironment will be discussed, thereby further exploring new ideas for the prevention and treatment of CRC.

Keywords: colorectal cancer; gut bacteria; immune escape; therapy; tumor microbial microenvironment.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Immune escape and metastasis of colorectal cancer.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Microbiological therapy for colorectal cancer.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Toxins and peptides related to microbiological therapy.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Abed J., Emgård J. E. M., Zamir G., Faroja M., Almogy G., Grenov A., et al. (2016). Fap2 mediates fusobacterium nucleatum colorectal adenocarcinoma enrichment by binding to tumor-expressed gal-galNAc. Cell Host Microbe 20 (2), 215–225. doi: 10.1016/j.chom.2016.07.006 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Agrawal S., Acharya D., Adholeya A., Barrow C. J., Deshmukh S. K. (2017). Nonribosomal peptides from marine microbes and their antimicrobial and anticancer potential. Front. Pharmacol. 8, 828. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2017.00828 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ahmadi S., Ghollasi M., Hosseini H. M. (2017). The apoptotic impact of nisin as a potent bacteriocin on the colon cancer cells. Microb. Pathog. 111, 193–197. doi: 10.1016/j.micpath.2017.08.037 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Alexander J. L., Posma J. M., Scott A., Poynter L., Mason S. E., Doria M. L., et al. (2023). Pathobionts in the tumour microbiota predict survival following resection for colorectal cancer. Microbiome 11 (1), 100. doi: 10.1186/s40168-023-01518-w - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Alon-Maimon T., Mandelboim O., Bachrach G. (2022). Fusobacterium nucleatum and cancer. Periodontol 2000 89 (1), 166–180. doi: 10.1111/prd.12426 - DOI - PMC - PubMed