The crosstalk between gut microbiota and microbiota-derived metabolites in hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), one of the leading causes of death worldwide, is a consequence of persistent liver injury, inflammation, and fibrosis. Recent research has demonstrated that the gut-liver axis plays a crucial role in the pathological mechanisms of HCC development. Given the overall paucity of data available, we examined both clinical and animal studies investigating the influence of gut microbiota and their metabolites on the development of HCC in light of current scientific understanding. In this review, we concentrate on the mechanism by which intestinal dysbiosis facilitates the hepatocarcinogenesis pathway and offer a detailed account of the specific pathways involved in the promotion of HCC by the microbiome and its metabolites. Based on this, researchers might extrapolate which strains would be beneficial or harmful to restore gut homeostasis by targeting gut-liver axis in the pathogenesis of HCC.

Keywords: Hepatocellular carcinoma; dysbiosis; gut microbiota; gut-liver axis; metabolite.