Gastroenterology Department, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli-IRCCS, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy.
School of Microbiology and APC Microbiome Ireland, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland.
Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2020 Oct;17(10):635-648. doi: 10.1038/s41575-020-0327-3. Epub 2020 Jul 9.
The gut microbiome has been implicated in cancer in several ways, as specific microbial signatures are known to promote cancer development and influence safety, tolerability and efficacy of therapies. The 'omics' technologies used for microbiome analysis continuously evolve and, although much of the research is still at an early stage, large-scale datasets of ever increasing size and complexity are being produced. However, there are varying levels of difficulty in realizing the full potential of these new tools, which limit our ability to critically analyse much of the available data. In this Perspective, we provide a brief overview on the role of gut microbiome in cancer and focus on the need, role and limitations of a machine learning-driven approach to analyse large amounts of complex health-care information in the era of big data. We also discuss the potential application of microbiome-based big data aimed at promoting precision medicine in cancer.
肠道微生物组在多种方式中与癌症相关，因为已知特定的微生物特征可促进癌症发展，并影响治疗的安全性、耐受性和疗效。用于微生物组分析的“组学”技术在不断发展，尽管大部分研究仍处于早期阶段，但越来越大、越来越复杂的大规模数据集正在产生。然而，在实现这些新工具的全部潜力方面存在不同程度的困难，这限制了我们对可用数据进行批判性分析的能力。在本观点中，我们简要概述了肠道微生物组在癌症中的作用，并重点介绍了在大数据时代，基于机器学习的方法在分析大量复杂医疗保健信息方面的必要性、作用和局限性。我们还讨论了基于微生物组的大数据的潜在应用，旨在促进癌症的精准医学。
