Tumors and immunotherapy: a study published by Nature Medicine confirms the importance of the intestinal microbiota in terms of protection of the organism
The study of intestinal microbiotathat is to say the set of microorganisms that populate our intestine, can improve the effectiveness of treatments anticancer immunotherapy. This is confirmed by the most extensive international research ever carried out on interaction microbiota-immunoterapiafunded by Seerave Foundationcoordinated by Computational Metagenomics Research Group of the Department of Cellular, Computational and Integrated Biology Cibio dell‘University of Trento andEuropean Institute of Oncologyled by Prof. Nicola Segata, in collaboration with other research groups in the Netherlands and the UK. The results of the work are published today on Nature Medicinee.
“Preliminary studies on a very limited number of patients have suggested that the intestinal microbiotadue to its role as director of the immune system, plays a role in the response of each patient toimmunoterapia against cancer and in particular against melanoma. The goal of our study was to seek confirmation of this role, which can have a major impact on oncology and medicine in general, “he says. Karla Leeresearcher of King’s College London and first signature of the work.
“The microbiota it is modular and there are strategies to be able to modify it, ranging from a specific diet up to new generation probiotics and fecal transplantation, consequently also modifying its action on the immune system. Understanding therefore what are the characteristics of the microbiota that make a patient a “responder” to treatment, one could act on the modification of the patient’s microbiota before starting therapy “, observes Andrew Maltez Thomasresearcher al Cibio Department dell’University of Trento and first signs with Lee.
“It should be remembered that theimmunoterapia has revolutionized the treatment of advanced melanoma: more than 50% of patients who receive it increase their survival by at least one year. Unfortunately, this positive response to treatment occurs in less than 50% of patients. Hence the importance of finding strategies to increase the number of responders and action on the microbiota is one of the most promising ways “, concludes Lee.
Tumors, immunotherapy and microbiota: “Diet and in particular fiber are fundamental”
“In our study, we put together the largest cohort of melanoma patients and samples of theirs intestinal microbiotainvolving five clinical centers (three in the UK, one in the Netherlands and one in Spain) – explain the co-authors Tim Spector e Rinse Weersmarespectively of King’ College London andUniversity of Groningen in the Netherlands and co-coordinators of the study -. By combining the 165 samples collected with the 147 samples from other studies already available we carried out a study metagenomico (i.e. based on gut microbiota sequencing) on a large scale and found that there is indeed a link between gut microbiota composition and function and response to immunotherapy. However, it should be specified that this connection is different and more complex than we had hypothesized because it involves different bacterial species in different patient cohorts. In particular, three types of bacteria (Bifidobacterium pseudocatenulatum, Roseburia spp. And Akkermansia muciniphila) seem to be more associated with a better immune response “.
“In summary – concludes Segata – the study shows that actually studying the microbiota is important in order to improve and customize immunotherapy treatments for melanoma, but at the same time it suggests that, also considering the person-to-person variability of the intestinal microbiota, even more extensive studies are needed to understand what are the main characteristics that confer the microbiota a greater likelihood of activating a positive response toimmunoterapia. There are studies already published that show that the dietfor example through the recruitment of many fibreplays an important role in this sense and others are underway to precisely define the food-microbiota-immune response link.
In essence, we need to identify which specific characteristics of the microbiota are directly linked to the clinical benefits of immunotherapy in order to then be able to exploit these characteristics in new personalized therapies to support immunotherapy. Similar studies will also have to be done for other cancers, as is already happening allo IEO and in European consortia such as Oncobiomeand they will also have to look at other genomic information, as is doing Seerave Foundation through other funded projects. The world of research is ready: we have developed ad hoc technologies and methodologies to be able to analyze the composition of the microbiota more precisely and we are convinced that from these studies new tools will emerge for the control of tumors, even those at an advanced stage “.
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