Interaction Between Functionally Activate Endometrial Microbiota and Host Gene Regulation in Endometrial Cancer

Abstract

Objective: In this study, we mainly explored two questions: Which microorganisms were functionally active in the endometrium of patients with endometrial cancer (EC)? What kind of response did the human host respond to functionally active microorganisms? Methods: Nine endometrial cancer patients and eight normal subjects were included in this study. HMP Unified Metabolic Analysis Network 3 (HUMAnN3) was used to obtain functional information of microorganisms. In addition, metaCyc-based GSEA functional enrichment analysis was used to obtain information on the metabolic pathways of the human host. At the same time, the O2PLS model and Spearman correlation analysis were used to analyze the microorganisms-host interaction. Results: With the novel metatranscriptome analysis pipeline, we described the composition of more than 5,000 functionally active microorganisms and analyzed the difference in microorganisms between the EC and the normal group. Our research found that these microorganisms were involved in part of the metabolic process of endometrial cancer, such as 6-sulfo-sialyl Lewis x epitope, N-acetyl-beta-glucosaminyl. In addition, the host-microbiota crosstalk of EC endometrium also included many biological processes, mainly functions related to tumor migration and the Apelin signaling pathway. Conclusion: The functionally active microorganisms in the EC endometrium played an essential role in the occurrence and migration of tumors. This meant that functionally active microorganisms could not be ignored in the treatment of endometrial cancer. This study helped to better understand the possible role of endometrial functional, active microorganisms in the occurrence and development of EC in patients with endometrial cancer and provided new information for new attempts to treat EC.

Keywords: endometrial cancer; gene regulation; host–microbe interactions; microbiome; tumor migration.