Department I of Internal Medicine, University Hospital Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
German Center for Infection Research, Partner Site Bonn-Cologne, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
Int J Gynecol Cancer. 2020 Sep;30(9):1326-1330. doi: 10.1136/ijgc-2019-000801. Epub 2020 May 5.
Several recent studies have identified a potential interaction between the vaginal microbiota and gynecological cancers, but little is known about the cervical microbiota and its changes during cancer treatment. Therefore, the aim of the study was to evaluate the quantitative and qualitative changes of cervical microbiota in patients undergoing concurrent chemotherapy and radiation treatment for locally advanced cervical cancer.
Cervical cytobrush samples of 15 cervical patients undergoing chemoradiation treatment were collected 1 day before starting external beam radiation therapy and on the day of the last fraction of brachytherapy. After DNA extraction, 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing of the V3-V4 region was performed on the MiSeq platform, followed by data processing and statistical analyses concerning the alpha and beta diversity of 16 samples (7 samples were excluded because of incomplete sample sets).
The amount of amplicon yield after polymerase chain reaction analysis in post-radiation samples was significantly lower compared with the baseline samples (pre 31.49±24.07 ng/µl; post 1.33±1.94 ng/µl; p=0.007). A comparison of pre-treatment and post-treatment samples did not show significant differences regarding beta diversity (weighted UniFrac). There was no significant difference in alpha diversity, which is used to characterize species diversity within a particular community and takes into account both number and abundance (Shannon Diversity Index pre-treatment samples: 2.167±0.7504 (95% CI 1.54 to 2.79); post-treatment samples: 1.97±0.43 (95% CI 1.61 to 2.33); p=0.38). Interindividual differences in patients could partly explain some variation of the samples (permutational multivariate analysis of variance).
There was a strong reduction in cervical bacterial loads after chemoradiation. Neither alpha nor beta diversity varied significantly when baseline samples were compared with post-treatment samples.
最近的几项研究已经确定了阴道微生物群与妇科癌症之间存在潜在的相互作用，但对于宫颈微生物群及其在癌症治疗过程中的变化知之甚少。因此，本研究旨在评估接受局部晚期宫颈癌同期放化疗的患者宫颈微生物群的定量和定性变化。
在开始外照射放疗前一天和近距离放疗最后一次分割当天，采集 15 名接受放化疗的宫颈癌患者的宫颈细胞刷样本。在提取 DNA 后，使用 MiSeq 平台对 V3-V4 区的 16S rRNA 扩增子进行测序，然后对 16 个样本的α和β多样性进行数据处理和统计分析（7 个样本因样本集不完整而被排除）。
与基线样本相比，放射后样本的聚合酶链反应分析后扩增子产量明显降低（预处理 31.49±24.07ng/µl；后处理 1.33±1.94ng/µl；p=0.007）。治疗前和治疗后样本的β多样性（加权 UniFrac）比较无显著差异。用于描述特定群落内物种多样性并同时考虑数量和丰度的α多样性无显著差异（Shannon 多样性指数预处理样本：2.167±0.7504（95%CI 1.54-2.79）；后处理样本：1.97±0.43（95%CI 1.61-2.33）；p=0.38）。患者个体间的差异部分解释了样本的一些变异（随机多变量方差分析）。
放化疗后宫颈细菌负荷量明显减少。与治疗前样本相比，治疗后样本的α和β多样性均无显著差异。
