ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Gastrointestinal Cancers: Colorectal Cancer
Volume 15 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2025.1578861
This article is part of the Research TopicGut Microbiota and Local Immune System in Colorectal and Liver CancerView all 3 articles
Comparative Microbiome Analysis of Paired Mucosal and Fecal Samples in Korean Colorectal Cancer Patients
Provisionally accepted
- 1Dankook University, Yongin, Republic of Korea
- 2Myongji Hospital, Seoul, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea
- 3School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
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Colorectal cancer (CRC) is closely linked to the gut microbiome, which plays a significant role in CRC pathogenesis through interactions with the tumor microenvironment. This study investigates this relationship by analyzing microbial profiles in pre-surgical fecal, tumor-adjacent mucosal, and postsurgical fecal samples from 30 Korean patients aged 60-80 years. Using 16S rRNA sequencing on the Illumina MiSeq platform, we conducted microbial community profiling with QIIME2 and classified taxa with the Silva 138.1 database. Comparative analysis of these three sample types through Linear discriminant analysis Effect Size (LEfSe) identified candidate markers associated with CRC, including Fusobacterium, Parvimonas, Prevotella 9, and Holdemanella, with pre-surgical fecal and mucosal samples showing higher abundances, which notably declined in post-surgical samples. Regression analysis revealed a correlation between Fusobacterium abundance and TNM staging, supporting its role in CRC progression. Functional pathway analysis identified enriched pathways related to amino acids and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) biosynthesis, suggesting these pathways contribute to tumor-supportive metabolic adaptations and inflammatory processes within the tumor microenvironment. Our findings suggest specific microbial markers with potential as diagnostic and prognostic indicators for CRC, highlighting the microbiome's role in advancing non-invasive approaches to cancer management.
Keywords: colorectal cancer, Gut Microbiota, Mucosal microbiota, Fusobacterium, Parvimonas, Prevotella 9, Holdemanella, microbial functional pathways
Received: 18 Feb 2025; Accepted: 30 May 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Kim, Kim and Lee. 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: Sanghun Lee, Dankook University, Yongin, Republic of Korea
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