Chung Allan, Chung Yu-Ting, Liang Yo-Wen, Chung Yih-Lin
Department of Industrial Design, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei, Taiwan.
Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Yuan Ze University, Taoyuan, Taiwan.
Head Neck. 2023 Aug;45(8):2047-2057. doi: 10.1002/hed.27431. Epub 2023 Jun 20.
Waldeyer lymphatic ring surrounds the nasopharynx and oropharynx, and no study to date has correlated its microbiome with the severity of oral mucositis (OM) in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) receiving chemoradiotherapy.
We performed 16S rRNA sequencing to characterize bacterial microbiome in tumor-affected nasopharynx and the surrounding normal oropharynx. We plotted the abundance and diversity of bacterial taxa and their phylogenetic distance and networks to visualize and compare the differences in pretreatment overall bacterial communities between the nasopharynx and oropharynx in patients with NPC with varying degrees of chemoradiotherapy-induced OM and quality of life.
We found microbial signatures in nasopharynx around NPC were not only dissimilar to those in the surrounding oropharynx but were almost unique to each patient. The genetic distance metrics further showed that different tumor microbiota distributions in the nasopharynx among patients with NPC were well-correlated with OM severity and quality of life during chemoradiotherapy.
At Waldeyer ring, the tumor-associated microbiome risk profiles of the respiratory region of nasopharynx, but not commensal microbiota of the alimentary region of oropharynx, could be noninvasive biomarkers for OM susceptibility and might include drug targets for the prevention of chemoradiation-induced OM in patients with Waldeyer ring-derived NPC.
瓦尔代尔淋巴环围绕着鼻咽和口咽，迄今为止尚无研究将其微生物群与接受放化疗的鼻咽癌（NPC）患者口腔黏膜炎（OM）的严重程度相关联。
我们进行了16S rRNA测序，以表征肿瘤累及的鼻咽和周围正常口咽中的细菌微生物群。我们绘制了细菌分类群的丰度和多样性及其系统发育距离和网络，以可视化和比较不同程度放化疗诱导的OM和生活质量的NPC患者治疗前鼻咽和口咽之间总体细菌群落的差异。
我们发现NPC周围鼻咽中的微生物特征不仅与周围口咽中的不同，而且几乎每个患者都是独特的。遗传距离指标进一步表明，NPC患者鼻咽中不同的肿瘤微生物群分布与放化疗期间的OM严重程度和生活质量密切相关。
在瓦尔代尔环处，鼻咽呼吸区域与肿瘤相关的微生物群风险特征，而非口咽消化区域的共生微生物群，可能是OM易感性的非侵入性生物标志物，并且可能包括预防瓦尔代尔环源性NPC患者放化疗诱导的OM的药物靶点。
