Background: With the improvement of bacterial detection, the theory of the sterile female upper reproductive tract has been frequently challenged in recent years. However, thus far, no researchers have used ovaries as study targets.
Methods: Six women who were diagnosed with ovarian cancer were included in the cancer group, and ten women who were diagnosed with a noncancerous ovarian condition (including three patients with uterine myoma and seven patients with uterine adenomyosis) were included in the control group. Immunohistochemistry staining using an antibacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) antibody was used to confirm the presence of bacteria in the ovarian tissues. In addition, 16S rRNA sequencing was used to compare the differences in the bacteria between ovarian cancer tissues and noncancerous ovarian tissues. BugBase and Phylogenetic Investigation of Communities by Reconstruction of Unobserved States (PICRUSt) were used to predict the functional composition of the bacteria.
Results: Bacterial LPS was present in ovarian cancer tissue and noncancerous ovarian tissue, which implied the presence of bacteria in ovarian tissue. When compared to the noncancerous ovarian bacteria at the phylum level, the cancerous ovarian bacteria were composed of increased Aquificae and Planctomycetes and decreased Crenarchaeota. When predicting metagenomes, gene functions associated with the potentially pathogenic and the oxidative stress-tolerant phenotype were enriched in the ovaries of the cancer group. Forty-six significantly different KEGG pathways existed in the ovarian bacteria of the cancer group compared to that of the control group.
Conclusions: Different bacteria compositions were present in cancerous and noncancerous ovarian tissues.
Trial registration: Chines Clinical Trail Registry, CHiCTR1800020018, Registered 11 September 2018, http://www.chictr.org.cn/.
Keywords: 16S rRNA sequencing; Bacteria; KEGG; Lipopolysaccharide; Ovarian cancer.