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Gut microbiota: a potential target for improved cancer therapy

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Abstract

Drug resistance and toxicity are major challenges observed during cancer treatment. In recent years, gut microbiota has been found to be strongly associated with the efficacy, toxicity, and side effects of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and immunotherapy. Both preclinical studies and clinical trials have demonstrated the potential of microbiota modulation for cancer treatment. The human gut microbiota has exciting prospects for developing biomarkers to predict the outcome of cancer treatment. Moreover, multiple approaches can alter the gut microbiota composition, including faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), probiotics, antibiotics (ATB), and diet. We describe the mechanisms by which the gut microbiota influences the efficacy and toxicity of cancer therapy, disease-related biomarkers, and methods to target the gut microbiota to improve outcomes. The purpose of this review is to provide new ideas for optimising cancer therapy by providing up-to-date information on the relationship between gut microbiota and cancer therapy, and hopes to find new targets for cancer treatment from human microbiota.

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Acknowledgements

Reprinted from EBioMedicine, Jiayuan Huang, Wenting Liu, Wanying Kang, Yulong He, Ruifu Yang, Xiangyu Mou, Wenjing Zhao, Effects of microbiota on anti-cancer drugs: Current knowledge and potential applications, Figure 1, pp. 104197, 2022, with permission from Elsevier.

Funding

This research was supported by Joint project of Hejiang County and Southwest Medical University (Grant No. 2020-HJXNYD-6), and Science and Technology Projects of Sichuan Province (Grant No. 2018JY0403).

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Author notes

  1. Mingkuan Zhao and Gen Jiang contributed equally to this work and share first authorship.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurosurgery, Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, China

    Mingkuan Zhao, Gen Jiang, Hu Zhou, Jiaqi Li, Wei Xiang, Shenjie Li, Haorun Wang & Jie Zhou

  2. Neurosurgery Clinical Medical Research Center of Sichuan Province, Lu Zhou, China

    Mingkuan Zhao, Gen Jiang, Hu Zhou, Jiaqi Li, Wei Xiang, Shenjie Li, Haorun Wang & Jie Zhou

  3. Neurological Diseases and Brain Function Laboratory, Lu Zhou, China

    Jie Zhou

  4. Academician (Expert) Workstation of Sichuan Province, The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, China

    Jie Zhou

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  1. Mingkuan Zhao
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  2. Gen Jiang
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Contributions

MZ and GJ drafted the manuscript and participated in key revisions of the manuscript. JL, HW, SL and WX searched and collected literature and made key revisions to the manuscript. MZ and GJ revised the manuscript based on ZJ's comments. JZ obtained funding and participated in the supervision of the study. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

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Correspondence to Jie Zhou.

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Zhao, M., Jiang, G., Zhou, H. et al. Gut microbiota: a potential target for improved cancer therapy. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 149, 541–552 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-022-04546-5

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