Microbial Communities in Gynecological Cancers and Their Association with Tumor Somatic Variation

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Bacteria are responsible for a wide range of human diseases including cancer. In our study we identified changes in the microbial communities of the female upper genital tract correlated with genomic variation in genes seen in gynecological cancers, endometrial and ovarian. This supports our hypothesis that differences in bacterial communities in the upper genital tract epithelium may lead to selection of specific genomic variation at the cellular level of these tissues that may predispose to their malignant transformation. Pathway analyses including correlated genes with changing microbiome may help understand how changing bacterial landscapes could lead to these cancers. ABSTRACT: There are strong correlations between the microbiome and human disease, including cancer. However, very little is known about potential mechanisms associated with malignant transformation in microbiome-associated gynecological cancer, except for HPV-induced cervical cancer. Our hypothesis is that differences in bacterial communities in upper genital tract epithelium may lead to selection of specific genomic variation at the cellular level of these tissues that may predispose to their malignant transformation. We first assessed differences in the taxonomic composition of microbial communities and genomic variation between gynecologic cancers and normal samples. Then, we performed a correlation analysis to assess whether differences in microbial communities selected for specific single nucleotide variation (SNV) between normal and gynecological cancers. We validated these results in independent datasets. This is a retrospective nested case-control study that used clinical and genomic information to perform all analyses. Our present study confirms a changing landscape in microbial communities as we progress into the upper genital tract, with more diversity in lower levels of the tract. Some of the different genomic variations between cancer and controls strongly correlated with the changing microbial communities. Pathway analyses including these correlated genes may help understand the basis for how changing bacterial landscapes may lead to these cancers. However, one of the most important implications of our findings is the possibility of cancer prevention in women at risk by detecting altered bacterial communities in the upper genital tract epithelium.