ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Systems Microbiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1658693
This article is part of the Research TopicUnlocking the Potential of the Microbiome in Cancer TherapyView all 6 articles
Stage-Specific Fecal and Salivary Microbiota Signatures for Non-Invasive Detection of Colorectal Cancer
Provisionally accepted
Zhenzhen Wu1
Zhenzheng Zhu1
Chenxi Zhou1
Zhenyi Lin1
Hujia Yang1Guanjun Jiang2
Shuning Ding3*
Jieru Yu3*
Leitao Sun1,4,5*- 1The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang Chinese Medical University (Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicineļ¼, Hangzhou, China
- 2Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Chinese Medicine, Longyou Branch, Quzhou, China
- 3College of Basic Medical Science, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, China
- 4Academy of Chinese Medical Science, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, China
- 5Key Laboratory of Neuropharmacology and Translational Medicine of Zhejiang Province, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, Hangzhou, China
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Background Fecal and salivary microbiota dysbiosis are involved in the pathogenesis of colorectal cancer (CRC). We investigated whether the fecal and salivary microbiota altered during colorectal tumorigenesis and explored their diagnostic performance. Methods We enrolled 30 metastatic CRC patients, 30 non-metastatic CRC patients, and 30 healthy controls between October 2023 and September 2024. Fecal and salivary samples were collected for microbial profiling via 16S rDNA sequencing and bioinformatics analysis. Results Fecal and salivary microbiota composition differed during CRC progression, with salivary microbiota progressively enriched in the gut. In addition, fecal and salivary microbial co-occurrence networks dynamically altered during CRC progression. The natural connectivity of fecal microbial community networks exhibited decreased stability, whereas salivary microbial community networks showed increased stability as CRC progressed. Finally, specific fecal microbial amplicon sequence variants (ASVs) in colorectal carcinogenesis achieved precise stage-specific diagnosis of CRC, outperforming salivary ASVs classifiers. Conclusions Generally, this study elucidates stage-specific microbial dynamics in CRC, providing novel insights for clinical diagnostic strategies.
Keywords: colorectal cancer, fecal microbiota, salivary microbiota, 16S rDNA gene sequencing, Microbial co-occurrence networks
Received: 03 Jul 2025; Accepted: 15 Sep 2025.
Copyright: Ā© 2025 Wu, Zhu, Zhou, Lin, Yang, Jiang, Ding, Yu and Sun. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Shuning Ding, snding@zcmu.edu.cn
Jieru Yu, jieruyu@zcmu.edu.cn
Leitao Sun, sunnylt@zcmu.edu.cn
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