Distinct microbes in breast cancer tissues

Breasts cancer tissues contain different bacterial species than those existing in healthy breasts, concluded a very recent study published online last week.

When I started this blog about bugs and poo, I knew it would take me a bit further than our colon and I would be writing about all sorts of diseases. However, the big surprise is how essential a healthy microbiota to lower the risk of developing cancer!

Cancer is such a bad word, isn't it? We know it's around us, we know it might strike us at any moment, we know and lost people who suffered because of it. Cancer is like a sword above our head, we don't know when it will fall.

I've already talked briefly about the link between cancer and our microbiota. And as research will get published, I will try to make sense of it all. And I'm glad to report I'm not the only one thinking that this may be (one of) the missing link(s) to treat cancer effectively. Recently, the biggest pharma companies have declared that microbiota research will now be an integral part of their cancer research programme, and that is GOOD news - they wouldn't spend millions on something they don't believe in, right?

The present study, an academic non-pharma-funded one, looked at tissues in breasts of healthy women, women with breast cancer, and women with benign tumours.

It's important to note that the tissues collected from malignant or benign breast tumours were not only the tumours themselves but also taken in a region of the breast that would, in all other circumstances, be considered as healthy tissue.

What the scientists realised is that the microbial species found in the different samples were different despite all being healthy tissues. The main results are the following (see figure for summary):

• The microbial profile of malignant tumours was identical to the microbial profile of benign tumours' and their adjacent tissues
• The microbial profiles of malignant and benign tumours were different from healthy breast's
• The microbial profiles of malignant and benign tumours contained less beneficial species such as lactic acid bacteria, which are known for their anti-cancer properties
• The microbes found in malignant and benign tissues have been shown to have the ability to cause DNA damage (in the lab)

The results

It may be scary to know that even though your tumour is benign, the bacteria around it have the ability to cause cancer by breaking DNA, but the authors of the study do specify that this may not be sufficient in itself to promote breast cancer development unless it occurs in someone who is genetically susceptible to develop cancer and already contains mutations in DNA repair.

I don't know about you, but I find these results almighty important! As I aways say when reading about amazing research like this: 'We're getting there'

Would you like to know more about the link betwen our microbiota and diseases such as cancer?  Do you believe it or do you think it's a fad?

See you next Monday,

The influence of gut flora on anti-cancer treatment

These two concepts may feel completely foreign to one another, but there is in fact a solid background to suggest one's anti-cancer treatment may be as effective as one's gut flora is diverse.

We know that cancer cells have developed a system to bypass the immune system so that our body is not efficient at fighting them.

On the other hand, we've always known that the gut flora and all our microbes all over our body have developed a partnership with our immune cells. From birth, the first microbes residing in and on us help us fight our invaders (more on this here).

The past five years have seen a surge in publications linking the two showing that gut flora diversity is key to fighting cancer on three fronts:

1. Diversity helps to avoid pro-cancer species to multiply in excess, which would help the rise of cancer cells

Indeed, colorectal cancer has now been firmly linked to an imbalance between good and bad bacteria in the gut flora with a predominance of fusobacterium, a pro-inflammatory species that drives cancer DNA mutations - more on this here.

2. Good species help the immune system fight the cancer cells
3. Good species help the body cope with chemotherapy and radiation side effects that affect the immune system

Microbial species in your gut are able to modulate the activity of different components of our immune system that aid the anti-cancer drug to fight cancer.*

So what can we do with this information? Currently there are only a few dietary measures that we can apply to hopefully avoid a microbial imbalance. I will address these very soon in a Monday article.

Did you know that some doctors advise you to take some probiotics when undergoing anti-cancer treatment?

Please feel free to share your stories or thoughts in the comments below, I'd love to read them.

See you next Monday!

* The two papers are: Iida N, et al. Commensal bacteria control cancer response to therapy by modulating the tumor microenvironment. Science 2013; 342: 967-970.
Viaud S, et al. The intestinal microbiota modulates the anticancer immune effects of cyclophosphamide. Science 2013; 342: 971-976.

We are not alone...

A bit like Orion the cat - in Men in Black - carrying his home galaxy on his necklace, more and more specialists in gut biology agree that our gut flora represents a whole new organ that lives independently from, as well as in association with us.

For centuries, we have been so fascinated by the sky and its stars, by  the wonderfulness and weirdness of galaxies, by the possibility of an extra-terrestrial life that we forgot to explore the fabulous microscopic world inside of us.

Our microbiota represents a whole new organ in the human body - Do you want to tweet this?

So why haven't we heard more about our inner galaxy? It's not like we've never been interested in invisible little buggers, in fact their existence was hypothesized thousands of years ago.
However, it's not until 1676 that one serious Dutch geek called Anton Van Leeuwenhoek built his own microscope and finally got the evidence of their existence.

Despite all these early efforts, work on our bug's collection of DNA genes only began some 340 years later, in 2008, way after work on the human genome started.

Well, yes, I can hear you say, we didn't know about DNA (discovered in 1869) and its structure and role (observed and proved in 1953) or even how to sequence it before the 70's!

Our fascination for the skies

But did you know that before embarking on the whole human genome sequencing, scientists worked on tiny species? The first ever genome to be fully analyzed was the one of a virus, by Sanger's team in 1977. I guess they chose that one because it was kind of a smallish job to start with - a story of only 11 genes.

Armed with the best techniques, scientists then turned ther attention to our own genome thinking it would give us the key to understand how we function. But it turned out that our own story is told with only 20,500 genes and isn't providing the answers to our most pressing questions!

While our genome is 1863 times bigger than Sanger's virus, we are 50 million time bigger than that virus! Does this mean we may not be in charge of all of our functions? That something else is helping us along the way, and in turn would be responsible for diseases?

With this mind, scientists are now shifting their attention to our gut microbes to find answers.

So, what about the microbiota genome then? How big is it? Well, with 100 trillion bacterial cells belonging to up to 1000 species, it is estimated that it may cover close to 3 million genes!

Three million genes of microbes in and on our body when we, ourselves, are only composed of 20,500? Pretty exciting... or frankly scary...

I can't wait to discover more about our inhabitants, and how we can help them to help us stay in shape, safe and sane! Stay tuned today, I will be publishing more articles throughout the day to celebrate MBAI launch. 

What questions would you like scientists to finally find answers to? 

Would you like to share your thoughts? Feel free to use the comments box, I'd love to read them.


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