Association between alcohol consumption and oesophageal microbiota in oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma

BACKGROUND: Microbiota has been reported to play a role in cancer patients. Nevertheless, little is known about the association between alcohol consumption and resultant changes in the diversity and composition of oesophageal microbiota in oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). METHODS: We performed a hospital-based retrospective study of 120 patients with pathologically diagnosed primary ESCC. The relevant information for all study participants were collected through a detailed questionnaire. The differences in adjacent tissues between non-drinkers and drinkers were explored using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Raw sequencing data were imported into QIIME 2 to analyse the diversity and abundance of microbiota. Linear discriminant analysis effect size (LEfSe) and unconditional logistic regression were performed to determine the bacterial taxa that were associated with drinking. RESULTS: The Shannon diversity index and Bray-Curtis distance of oesophageal microbiota were significantly different among drinkers(P < 0.05). The alcohol-related bacteria were primarily from the orders Clostridiales, Gemellales and Pasteurellales, family Clostridiaceae, Lanchnospiraceae, Helicobacteraceae, Alcaligenaceae, Bacteroidaceae, Pasteurellaceae and Gemellaceae; genus Clostridium, Helicobacter, Catonella, Bacteroides, Bacillus, Moraxella, and Bulleidia; and species B. moorei and longum (genus Bifidobacterium). In addition, the diversity and abundance of these microbiota were observed to be affected by the age, residential districts of the patients, and sampling seasons. Moreover, the higher the frequency and years of alcohol consumption, the lower was the relative abundance of genus Catonella that was observed. CONCLUSION: Alcohol consumption is associated with alterations in both the diversity and composition the of the oesophageal microbiota in ESCC patients. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12866-021-02137-x.