An international team of scientists, co-led by researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, has created the first pan-cancer mycobiome atlas — a survey of 35 types of cancer and their associated fungi.
The findings are published September 29, 2022 in the journal Cell.
Cancer cells and microbes have a long and enduring association. Both have coevolved within the ecosystems of the human body, often relying on the same resources. Competition for these resources often affects the replication and survival of cancer cells, microbes and the human host.
The association between cancer and individual microbes has long been studied case-by-case, but much recent attention focuses on the whole human microbiome, particularly in the gut, which houses more — and more diverse — communities of bacteria, viruses and fungi than anywhere else in or on the human body.
However, the roles and influence of cancer-associated fungi remain largely unstudied and unknown. Fungi are more complicated organisms than viruses and bacteria. They are eukaryotes — organisms with cells containing nuclei. Their cells are much more similar to animal cells than to bacteria or viruses.
“The existence of fungi in most human cancers is both a surprise and to be expected,” said Rob Knight, PhD, professor in the departments of Pediatrics at UC San Diego School of Medicine and Bioengineering and Computer Science at UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, Wolfe Family Endowed Chair in Microbiome Research at Rady Children’s Hospital-San Diego and co-founder of Micronoma, a San Diego-based company developing microbial biomarkers in blood and tissues to diagnose and treat cancers.
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