Abundance and Metabolism Disruptions of Intratumoral Microbiota by Chemical and Physical Actions Unfreeze Tumor Treatment Resistance

Adv Sci (Weinh). 2022 Mar;9(7):e2105523. doi: 10.1002/advs.202105523. Epub 2022 Jan 17.

Abstract

Intratumoral or intestinal microbiota correlates with tumorigenesis and progression, and microbiota regulation for reinforcing various anti-tumor approaches is of significant importance, which, however, suffers from no precise regulation method and unclear underlying mechanism. Herein, a microbiome metabolism-engineered phototherapy strategy is established, wherein Nb2 C/Au nanocomposite and the corresponding phototherapy are harnessed to realize "chemical" and "physical" bacterial regulations. Flora analysis and mass spectrometry (MS) and metabonomics combined tests demonstrate that the synergistic microbiota regulations can alter the abundance, diversity of intratumoral microbiome, and disrupt metabolic pathways of microbiome and tumor microenvironment, wherein the differential singling pathways and biosynthetic necessities or metabolites that can affect tumor progression are identified. As well, anti-TNFα is introduced to unite with bacterial regulation to synergistically mitigate bacterial-induced inflammation, which, along with the metabolism disruptions of intratumoral microbiota and tumor microenvironment, unfreezes tumor resistance and harvests significantly-intensified phototherapy-based anti-tumor outcomes against 4T1 and CT26 tumors. The clear underlying principles of microbiome-regulated tumorigenesis and the established microbiome metabolism regulation method provide distinctive insights into tumor therapy, and can be also extended to other gut microbiome-associated lesions interference.

Keywords: flora analysis; inflammation regulation; metabolomics analysis; microbiome metabolism disruption; phototherapy; tumor microenvironment re-shaping.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Gastrointestinal Microbiome*
  • Humans
  • Metabolomics
  • Microbiota*
  • Neoplasms* / therapy
  • Tumor Microenvironment