Urogenital Microbiota:Potentially Important Determinant of PD-L1 Expression in Male Patients with Non-muscle Invasive Bladder Cancer

BMC Microbiology

Jiarong Zeng¹  Pengcheng Huang²  Chunxiao Chen²  Zehai Huang²  Biao Li²  Peng Wu³  Yuehui Wen⁴  Jie Zhao⁵  Kun Li⁶ 

[1] Department of Urology, Meizhou People’s Hospital, Meizhou, China;Department of Urology, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China;Department of Urology, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China;Clinical Microbiota Center, Nanfang Hospital, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China;Meizhou hospital of TCM, Meizhou, China;School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China;The third hospital of mianyang, Sichuan Province, China;

关键词: Bladder cancer;    Urogenital tract;    Microbiota;    PD-L1;    Immune escape;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12866-021-02407-8

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundUrogenital microbiota may be associated with the recurrence of bladder cancer, but the underlying mechanism remains unclear. The notion that microbiota can upregulate PD-L1 expression in certain epithelial tumors to promote immune escape has been demonstrated. Thus, we hypothesized that the urogenital microbiota may be involved in the recurrence and progression of non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) by upregulating the PD-L1 expression. To test this hypothesis, we investigated the relationship between urogenital microbial community and PD-L1 expression in male patients with NMIBC.Results16S rRNA gene sequencing was performed to analyse the composition of urogenital microbiota, and the expression of PD-L1 in cancerous tissues was detected by immunohistochemistry. The subjects (aged 43–79 years) were divided into PD-L1-positive group (Group P, n = 9) and PD-L1-negative group (Group N, n = 19) respectively based on their PD-L1 immunohistochemical results. No statistically significant differences were found in the demographic characteristics between group P and N. We observed that group P exhibited higher species richness (based on Observed species and Ace index, both P < 0.05). Furthermore, subgroup analysis showed that the increase in number of PD-L1 positive cells was accompanied by increased richness of urogenital microbiota. Significantly different composition of urogenital microbiota was found between group P and group N (based on weighted Unifrac and unweighted Unifrac distances metric, both P < 0.05). Enrichment of some bacterial genera (e.g., Leptotrichia, Roseomonas, and Propionibacterium) and decrease of some bacterial genera (e.g., Prevotella and Massilia) were observed in group P as compared with group N. These findings indicated that these genera may affect the expression of PD-L1 through some mechanisms to be studied.ConclusionOur study provided for the first time an overview of the association between urogenital microbiota and PD-L1 expression in male patients with NMIBC, indicating that urogenital microbiota was an important determinant of PD-L1 expression in male NMIBC patients.

【 授权许可】

CC BY