Canine mammary tumor (CMT) is the most common tumor in dogs, with 50% of malignant cases, and lacks an effective therapeutic schedule, hence its early diagnosis is of great importance to achieve a good prognosis. Microbiota is believed to play important roles in systemic diseases, including cancers. In this study, 91 tumors, 21 oral and fecal samples in total were collected from dogs with CMTs, and 31 oral and 21 fecal samples from healthy dogs were collected as control. The intratumoral, oral and gut bacterial community of dogs with CMTs and healthy dogs was profiled by 16S rRNA high-throughput sequencing and bioinformatic methods. The predominant intratumoral microbes were Ralstonia, Allorhizobium-Neorhizobium-Pararhizobium-Rhizobium, Pseudomonas, unidentified_Chloroplast and Bacteroides at the genus level. In addition, our findings demonstrated striking changes in the composition of the oral and gut bacterium community in the dogs suffered from CMTs compared to the healthy dogs, with a significant increase of Bacteroides which also was the significant microbial biomarker in the oral and gut bacterium community. It showed that the Bacteroides was shared in the intratumoral, oral and intestinal bacterial microbiomes, confirming that microbiota might travel from the mouth to the intestine and finally to the distant mammary tumor tissue. This study provides a new microbiological idea for the treatment of canine mammary tumors, and also provides a theoretical basis for the study of human breast cancer.
Keywords: canine mammary tumors; gut microbiome; intratumoral microbiome; microbiome; oral microbiome.