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REVIEW article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Cancer Molecular Targets and Therapeutics
Volume 15 - 2025 |
doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1506577
This article is part of the Research Topic Renewed Insight into Cancer Mechanism and Therapy View all 14 articles
Emerging roles of intratumor microbiota: a new key for cancer therapy
Provisionally accepted- First Hospital of Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
Microorganisms, including bacteria, viruses, and fungi, have been found to play critical roles in tumor microenvironments. Due to their low biomass and other obstacles, the presence of intratumor microbes has been challenging to definitively establish. However, advances in biotechnology have enabled researchers to reveal the association between intratumor microbiota and cancer. Recent studies have shown that tumor tissues, once thought to be sterile, actually contain various microorganisms. Disrupted mucosal barriers and adjacent normal tissues are important sources of intratumor microbiota.Additionally, microbes can invade tumors by traveling through the bloodstream to the tumor site and infiltrating through damaged blood vessels.These intratumor microbiota may promote the initiation and progression of cancers by inducing genomic instability and mutations, affecting epigenetic modifications, activating oncogenic pathways, and promoting inflammatory responses. This review summarizes the latest advancements in this field, including techniques and methods for identifying and culturing intratumor microbiota, their potential sources, functions, and roles in the efficacy of immunotherapy. It explores the relationship between gut microbiota and intratumor microbiota in cancer patients, and whether altering gut microbiota might influence the characteristics of intratumor microbiota and the host immune microenvironment. Additionally, the review discusses the prospects and limitations of utilizing intratumor microbiota in antitumor immunotherapy.
Keywords: Intratumor microbiome, Cancer, Immune System, Gut Microbiota, therapy
Received: 05 Oct 2024; Accepted: 04 Feb 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Fang, Yang, Zhang, Shuai, Li, Chen and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Pengzhong Fang, First Hospital of Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China
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