Airway Microbiota in Patients With Synchronous Multiple Primary Lung Cancer: The Bacterial Topography of the Respiratory Tract

Kai Qian; Yi Deng; William S Krimsky; Yong-Geng Feng; Jun Peng; Yong-Hang Tai; Hao Peng; Li-Hong Jiang

doi:10.3389/fonc.2022.811279

Airway Microbiota in Patients With Synchronous Multiple Primary Lung Cancer: The Bacterial Topography of the Respiratory Tract

Front Oncol. 2022 Apr 12:12:811279. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2022.811279. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Kai Qian^{1

2

3}, Yi Deng^{2

3

4}, William S Krimsky⁵, Yong-Geng Feng⁶, Jun Peng^{1

2}, Yong-Hang Tai⁷, Hao Peng^{1

2}, Li-Hong Jiang^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Thoracic Surgery, The First People's Hospital of Yunnan Province, Kunming, China.
² The Affiliated Hospital of Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, China.
³ Faculty of Life and Biotechnology, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, China.
⁴ Department of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, The First People's Hospital of Yunnan Province, Kunming, China.
⁵ Chief Medical Officer, Gala Therapeutics, San Carlos, CA, United States.
⁶ Department of Thoracic Surgery, Institute of Surgery Research, Daping Hospital, Army Medical University, Chongqing, China.
⁷ School of Physics and Electronic Information, Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, China.

Abstract

Microbes and microbiota dysbiosis are correlated with the development of lung cancer; however, the airway taxa characteristics and bacterial topography in synchronous multiple primary lung cancer (sMPLC) are not fully understood. The present study aimed to investigate the microbiota taxa distribution and characteristics in the airways of patients with sMPLC and clarify specimen acquisition modalities in these patients. Using the precise positioning of electromagnetic navigation bronchoscopy (ENB), we analyzed the characteristics of the respiratory microbiome, which were collected from different sites and using different sampling methods. Microbiome predictor variables were bacterial DNA burden and bacterial community composition based on 16sRNA. Eight non-smoking patients with sMPLC in the same pulmonary lobe were included in this study. Compared with other sampling methods, bacterial burden and diversity were higher in surface areas sampled by bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL). Bacterial topography data revealed that the segment with sMPLC lesions provided evidence of specific colonizing bacteria in segments with lesions. After taxonomic annotation, we identified 4863 phylotypes belonging to 185 genera and 10 different phyla. The four most abundant specific bacterial community members detected in the airway containing sMPLC lesions were Clostridium, Actinobacteria, Fusobacterium, and Rothia, which all peaked at the segments with sMPLC lesions. This study begins to define the bacterial topography of the respiratory tract in patients with sMPLC and provides an approach to specimen acquisition for sMPLC, namely BAL fluid obtained from segments where lesions are located.

Keywords: bacterial topography; bronchoalveolar lavage; electromagnetic navigation bronchoscopy; microbiota (16S); synchronous multiple primary lung cancer.