Recently, Professor Wang Hui of the School of Public Health of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, together with Professor Zhu Ruixin of Tongji University, Professor Zhang Guoqing of shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health of chinese Academy of Sciences, Professor Chen Xingdong of Fudan University and Professor Zhu Lixin of the Sixth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, published a team titled Multi-kingdom microbiota analyses in the internationally renowned journal Nature Microbiology bacterial–fungal interactions and biomarkers of colorectal cancer across cohorts research paper, which conducted a multicenter cohort study of the four-realm microbiome of the gut microbiota of colorectal cancer patients, analyzed and mapped the four-realm microbiome map of eight colorectal cancer population cohorts worldwide, and discovered new mechanisms of colorectal cancer-specific bacterial-fungal interaction. A new approach based on microorganisms and their functional markers is provided for the diagnosis of colorectal cancer.
Cancer is a major global public health problem [1] and is the third leading cause of death on the mainland and the second leading cause of death in the United States. The 2021 Cancer Statistics Report published by the Journal of Clinical Oncology "CA" shows that the incidence and mortality of colorectal cancer ranks third among both men and women, which greatly increases the social burden, so new colorectal cancer early screening methods and treatment options are urgently needed for clinical use [2-3]. Recently, a large number of studies have shown that the occurrence and development of colorectal cancer is closely related to the changes in the gut microbiome [4-5], and the intestinal microbiome includes the four microbiomes of bacteria, fungi, archaea and viruses, so it is still blank for the mechanism of colorectal cancer development around the microorganisms of the four segments of the gut microbiome.
The study, which integrated metagenomic data from a total of 1368 specimens of colorectal cancer cohorts in 8 countries around the world, not only found single-boundary microbial strain markers (27 bacteria, 20 fungi, 20 archaea and 21 viral species) that can be used for colorectal cancer diagnosis, but also found for the first time the most accurate multi-boundary minimal core flora (11 bacteria, 4 fungi and 1 archaea), in addition, through metagenomic function predictions, The level of D-amino acid metabolism and butyrate metabolism in the intestinal flora of colorectal cancer patients is significantly increased. In conclusion, the study not only reveals the microbial markers specific to colorectal cancer that are prevalent in different geographical populations, but also verifies the feasibility of the four-realm microbiome as an auxiliary tool for the diagnosis of colorectal cancer, and further proposes the possibility of microorganisms and their related functional genes as potential targets for the treatment of colorectal cancer, providing new methods and new ideas based on microorganisms and their functional markers for the early diagnosis and prognosis assessment of colorectal cancer.
Figure 1. Colorectal cancer-specific fungal markers and prediction of their diagnostic ability in multicenter cohorts
The research was funded by the Key R&D Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission and the Health Commission, and the first author and the last corresponding author were affiliations of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine. Liu Ningning, researcher of the School of Public Health of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Jiao Na, researcher of children's hospital affiliated to Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Tan Jingxuan, master's student of school of public health of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, and Wang Ziliang, researcher of Shanghai Municipal Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, are the co-first authors of the paper. The project has also received strong support and assistance from collaborators Academician Zhao Guoping of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Academician Liao Wanqing of the Naval Military Medical University, Professor Pan Weihua of the Naval Military Medical University, Dr. Wenjie Fang of the Naval Military Medical University, Professor Geromy G. Moore of the Agricultural Research Bureau of the United States Department of Agriculture, Professor Christopher Heeschen of the Center for Single-Cell Omics and Disease Research of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, and Professor Zisis Kozlakidis of the International Cancer Research Agency of the World Health Organization.
Thanks to the three reviewers, Ran Blekhman, Aleksandar Kostic and George Miller, for giving high praise to the work: "All my concerns have been addressed. I believe that this is an important contribution.” “I would like to congratulate the authors on this interesting and comprehensive study. My concerns have been sufficiently addressed.”
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