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Characteristics of gut microbiota in patients with gastric cancer by surgery, chemotherapy and lymph node metastasis

  • Research Article
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Abstract

Background

Gastric cancer (GC) is a malignant gastrointestinal tumor that can result in high mortality. Surgery and chemotherapy are often used for the effective treatment of GC. In addition, lymph node metastasis is a significant factor affecting the therapy of GC. Current researches have revealed that gut microbiota has the potential as biomarkers to distinguish healthy people and GC patients. However, the relationship between surgery, chemotherapy, and lymph node metastasis is still unclear.

Methods

In this study, 16S rRNA sequencing was used to investigate 157 GC fecal samples to identify the role of surgery, chemotherapy, and lymph node metastasis. Immunohistochemical analysis was used to value the expression of Ki67, HER2 in GC patient tissues.

Results

There exist some gut microbiotas which can distinguish surgery from non-surgery GC patients, including Enterococcus, Megasphaera, Corynebacterium, Roseburia, and Lachnospira. Differences between lymph node metastasis and chemotherapy in GC patients are not significant. Moreover, we found the abundance of Blautia, Ruminococcus, Oscillospira were related to the expression of Ki67 and the abundance of Prevotella, Lachnospira, Eubacterium, Desulfovibiro were correlated with the expression of HER2.

Conclusions

The choice of treatment has a certain impact on the intestinal flora of patients with gastric cancer. Our research shows that surgery has a great effect on the intestinal flora of patients with gastric cancer. However, there were no significant differences in the characteristics of intestinal flora in patients with gastric cancer whether they received chemotherapy or whether they had lymph node metastasis. In addition, the association of gut microbiota with Ki67 and HER2 indicators is expected to provide the possibility of gut microbiota as a tumor prognostic marker.

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Data availability

Sequences of this study have been deposited on NGDC under BioProject ID PRJCA006619 (available at https://ngdc.cncb.ac.cn/bioproject/browse/PRJCA006619).

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Acknowledgements

We thank Guoqing Ru in Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital for assistance with GC tissue histological examination.

Funding

This study was supported by Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. LQ21H200007), Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital Excellent Scientific Research Start-up Foundation of China (Grant Nos. ZRY2019C008 and ZRY2019C0025), Zhejiang Provincial Science Research Project of Department of Education of China (Grant No. Y201942606), Zhejiang Provincial Medical and Health Science and Technology Project of China (Grant Nos. 2017KY216 and 2017KY486), and Zhejiang Provincial Ten Thousand People Plan for Outstanding Talents of China (Grant No. 00004A51901).

Author information

Author notes

  1. Jianxin Lyu

    Present address: Laboratory Medicine Center, Department of Transfusion Medicine, Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital (Affiliated People’s Hospital, Hangzhou Medical College), Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

  2. Changchang Chen, Jian Shen and Yaoqiang Du contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Laboratory Medicine, Hangzhou Medical College, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

    Changchang Chen & Jianxin Lyu

  2. Department of Medical Administration, Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital (Affiliated People’s Hospital, Hangzhou Medical College), Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

    Jian Shen

  3. Laboratory Medicine Center, Department of Transfusion Medicine, Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital (Affiliated People’s Hospital, Hangzhou Medical College), Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

    Jian Shen & Yaoqiang Du

  4. The Eye Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University (Zhejiang Eye Hospital), Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

    Xinwei Shi

  5. Hangzhou Guhe Information and Technology Company, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

    Yaofang Niu & Gulei Jin

  6. School of Basic Medicine and Forensic Medicine, Hangzhou Medical College, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

    Yanxin Liu & Lijun Lin

  7. General Surgery, Cancer Center, Department of Gastrointestinal and Pancreatic Surgery, Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital (Affiliated People’s Hospital, Hangzhou Medical College), Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China

    Yongkang Shi

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  1. Changchang Chen
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Contributions

LJL and YKS designed and supervised this study, CCC and JS drafted this manuscript, CCC, YFN, and GLJ provided technical and material support and data analysis, CCC, YXL and XWS provided the samples and clinical data. YQD and JXL revised the manuscript critically for important intellectual content.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yongkang Shi, Jianxin Lyu or Lijun Lin.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

Yaofang Niu and Gulei Jin are employed by the Hangzhou Guhe Information and Technology Company. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. The Ethics Committee of Zhejiang Provincial People’s Hospital approved this study (No. 2022QT010). Due to the retrospective nature of the study, the Medical Ethics Committee of Zhejiang Provincial People's Hospital waived the need for written informed consent by the patients, and all the samples were anonymous.

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Chen, C., Shen, J., Du, Y. et al. Characteristics of gut microbiota in patients with gastric cancer by surgery, chemotherapy and lymph node metastasis. Clin Transl Oncol 24, 2181–2190 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12094-022-02875-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12094-022-02875-y

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