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Review
. 2021 Jul 27;13(15):3779.
doi: 10.3390/cancers13153779.

The Microbiome as a Potential Target for Therapeutic Manipulation in Pancreatic Cancer

Affiliations
Review

The Microbiome as a Potential Target for Therapeutic Manipulation in Pancreatic Cancer

Rozana Abdul Rahman et al. Cancers (Basel). .

Abstract

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is one of the most lethal cancers and is projected to be the second most common cause of cancer-related death by 2030, with an overall 5-year survival rate between 7% and 9%. Despite recent advances in surgical, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy techniques, the outcome for patients with PDAC remains poor. Poor prognosis is multifactorial, including the likelihood of sub-clinical metastatic disease at presentation, late-stage at presentation, absence of early and reliable diagnostic biomarkers, and complex biology surrounding the extensive desmoplastic PDAC tumour micro-environment. Microbiota refers to all the microorganisms found in an environment, whereas microbiome is the collection of microbiota and their genome within an environment. These organisms reside on body surfaces and within mucosal layers, but are most abundantly found within the gut. The commensal microbiome resides in symbiosis in healthy individuals and contributes to nutritive, metabolic and immune-modulation to maintain normal health. Dysbiosis is the perturbation of the microbiome that can lead to a diseased state, including inflammatory bowel conditions and aetiology of cancer, such as colorectal and PDAC. Microbes have been linked to approximately 10% to 20% of human cancers, and they can induce carcinogenesis by affecting a number of the cancer hallmarks, such as promoting inflammation, avoiding immune destruction, and microbial metabolites can deregulate host genome stability preceding cancer development. Significant advances have been made in cancer treatment since the advent of immunotherapy. The microbiome signature has been linked to response to immunotherapy and survival in many solid tumours. However, progress with immunotherapy in PDAC has been challenging. Therefore, this review will focus on the available published evidence of the microbiome association with PDAC and explore its potential as a target for therapeutic manipulation.

Keywords: microbiome; pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC); therapeutic manipulation.

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Conflict of interest statement

R.A.R. has received educational support funding from Janssen, Roche, Pfizer, Ipsen, Merck, and Celgene. Angela Lamarca received travel and educational support from Ipsen, Pfizer, Bayer, AAA, SirtEx, Novartis, Mylan and Delcath; speaker honoraria from Merck, Pfizer, Ipsen, Incyte and AAA; advisory honoraria from EISAI, Nutricia Ipsen, QED and Roche; she is a member of the Knowledge Network and NETConnect Initiatives funded by Ipsen. R.A.H. has served on the advisory board for Roche, BMS, Eisai, Celgene, Beigene, Ipsen, BTG. He has received speaker fees from Eisai, Ipsen, Mylan, PrimeOncology and has received travel and educational support from Bayer, BMS and Roche; all outside of the scope of this work. J.W.V. has received consulting or Advisory role for Agios, AstraZeneca, Delcath Systems, Keocyt, Genoscience Pharma, Incyte, Ipsen, Merck, Mundipharma EDO, Novartis, PCI Biotech, Pfizer, Pieris Pharmaceuticals, QED, and Wren Laboratories; Speakers’ Bureau for Imaging Equipment Limited, Ipsen, Novartis, Nucana; and received Travel Grants from Celgene and Nucana. M.G.M. received research grant support from Servier, Ipsen, and NuCana. She has received travel and accommodation support from Bayer and Ipsen and speaker honoraria from Pfizer, Ipsen, NuCana, and Mylan. She has served on advisory boards for Celgene, Ipsen, Sirtex, Baxalta and Incyte.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The suggested microbiome related to pancreatic cancer. Created with Biorender.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Potential benefits of utilising the microbiome in the management of patients with pancreatic cancer. Created with Biorender.

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