Dohlman Anders B, Pan Xiangyu, Zitvogel Laurence, Iliev Iliyan D
Department of Medical Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA.
Joan and Sanford I. Weill Department of Medicine, Gastroenterology and Hepatology Division, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
Nat Microbiol. 2025 Sep 9. doi: 10.1038/s41564-025-02103-7.
Microbial influence on cancer development and therapeutic response is a growing area of cancer research. Although it is known that microorganisms can colonize certain tissues and contribute to tumour initiation, the use of deep sequencing technologies and computational pipelines has led to reports of multi-kingdom microbial communities in a growing list of cancer types. This has prompted discussions on the role and scope of microbial presence in cancer, while raising the possibility of microbiome-based diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic tools. However, additional investigation and thorough validation of cancer microbiome findings are required before this translational potential can be realized. Here we provide historical context and a conceptual framework for the so-called cancer microbiome and summarize experimental studies into tumour-associated bacteria, fungi and other microorganisms. We also discuss the current evidence for microbial colonization of tumours and their varied influence on the disease, including recent debates. Finally, we consider outstanding questions and discuss our outlook for the field.
微生物对癌症发展和治疗反应的影响是癌症研究中一个不断发展的领域。尽管已知微生物可在某些组织中定殖并促进肿瘤发生，但深度测序技术和计算流程的应用已使得越来越多的癌症类型中出现了关于多界微生物群落的报道。这引发了关于微生物在癌症中存在的作用和范围的讨论，同时也增加了基于微生物组的诊断、预后和治疗工具的可能性。然而，在实现这种转化潜力之前，需要对癌症微生物组的研究结果进行进一步调查和全面验证。在此，我们为所谓的癌症微生物组提供历史背景和概念框架，并总结对肿瘤相关细菌、真菌和其他微生物的实验研究。我们还讨论了目前关于肿瘤微生物定殖及其对疾病的不同影响的证据，包括最近的争论。最后，我们考虑了悬而未决的问题，并讨论了该领域的前景。
