Previous studies have revealed that the microbiome plays a role in the development and progression of some cancers and gut microbiome has been linked with immune homeostasis as well as antitumor immune responses. In the current study, scientists at the University of California, Davis aimed to evaluate the intratumoral microbiome in patients with nonmetastatic soft tissue sarcoma (STS) undergoing neoadjuvant radiotherapy (RT) and surgery.

Two recent studies have reported new insights into the role of the tumor-associated microbiome in both drug response and metastasis. Researchers working at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, reported in the Nov. 16, 2022, issue of Nature that bacteria can promote the spreading of cancer as single cells with recruitment of myeloid host cells. In a parallel publication, the same team reported in the Nov. 15, 2022, issue of Cell Reports that the primary chemotherapy used to treat colorectal cancer (CRC), 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), was less effective when the tumor included bacteria that were insensitive to 5-FU antimicrobial activity.

Researchers at Duke University have developed a set of methods to separate out microbial contamination from microbiome species that were part of tumors and used those methods to gain new insights into tumor microbiomes.