Like other body districts, lungs present a complex bacteria community. An emerging function of lung microbiota is to promote and maintain a state of immune tolerance, to prevent uncontrolled and not desirable inflammatory response caused by inhalation of harmless environmental stimuli. This effect is mediated by a continuous dialog between commensal bacteria and immune cells resident in lungs, which express a repertoire of sensors able to detect microorganisms. The same receptors are also involved in the recognition of pathogens and in mounting a proper immune response. Due to its important role in preserving lung homeostasis, the lung microbiota can be also considered a mirror of lung health status. Indeed, several studies indicate that lung bacterial composition drastically changes during the occurrence of pulmonary pathologies, such as lung cancer, and the available data suggest that the modifications of lung microbiota can be part of the etiology of tumors in lungs and can influence their progression and response to therapy. These results provide the scientific rationale to analyze lung microbiota composition as biomarker for lung cancer and to consider lung microbiota a new potential target for therapeutic intervention to reprogram the antitumor immune microenvironment. In the present review, we discussed about the role of lung microbiota in lung physiology and summarized the most relevant data about the relationship between lung microbiota and cancer.

与身体其他部位一样，肺部也有一个复杂的细菌群落。肺部微生物群的一个新兴功能是促进和维持免疫耐受状态，以防止因吸入无害的环境刺激而引起的不受控制和不良的炎症反应。这种效应是由共生细菌和肺部免疫细胞之间的持续对话介导的，肺部表达了一系列能够检测微生物的传感器。相同的受体还参与病原体的识别和发起适当的免疫反应。由于其在维持肺部稳态方面的重要作用，肺部微生物群也可以被认为是肺部健康状况的一面镜子。事实上，多项研究表明，在肺癌等肺部病变发生过程中，肺部细菌组成会发生巨大变化，现有数据表明，肺部微生物群的变化可能是肺部肿瘤病因的一部分，并可能影响其进展和进展。对治疗的反应。这些结果为分析肺微生物群组成作为肺癌生物标志物提供了科学依据，并将肺微生物群视为重新编程抗肿瘤免疫微环境的治疗干预的新潜在目标。在本综述中，我们讨论了肺微生物群在肺生理学中的作用，并总结了有关肺微生物群与癌症之间关系的最相关数据。