Purpose

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), an epithelial-originated malignant tumor, has a special geographic distribution. However, the etiology of NPC has not been examined in detail. Increasing pieces of evidence indicate that the microbiome may contribute to head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Until now, there is limited information on the role of the microbiome in NPC, so we assessed variations in the nasopharynx microbiota of patients with NPC relative to the bacterial in health controls.

Methods

Nasopharynx lavage fluid (NLF) samples were collected from 11 NPC patients and 5 volunteer controls. 16S rRNA sequencing and comparative analyses of NLF bacterial microbiome between NPC patients and controls were performed.

Results

NLF microbial alpha-diversity by the Shannon index and Simpson index decreased significantly in the NPC patients when compared with the controls. Beta-diversity by principal component analysis exhibited separated patterns of the NPC patients and healthy controls. Thirty-one genera differed significantly between the NPC patient group and healthy control group. The abundance of 17 bacteria was correlated with primary tumor size and invaded lymph node size. Functional gene prediction analysis showed that 9 gene function pathways were significantly different between the two groups.

Conclusion

Our results demonstrated that the nasopharynx microbiota in NPC patients was different from that of the healthy controls, suggesting that the nasopharynx microenvironment might be related to NPC.

中文翻译：

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鼻咽癌患者与健康对照组鼻咽微生物群的特征

目的

鼻咽癌（NPC）是一种起源于上皮的恶性肿瘤，具有特殊的地理分布。然而，NPC的病因尚未得到详细检查。越来越多的证据表明微生物组可能导致头颈部鳞状细胞癌。到目前为止，关于微生物组在 NPC 中的作用的信息有限，因此我们评估了 NPC 患者鼻咽微生物群相对于健康对照组中细菌的变化。

方法

从 11 名 NPC 患者和 5 名志愿者对照中收集鼻咽灌洗液 (NLF) 样本。对 NPC 患者和对照组之间的 NLF 细菌微生物组进行 16S rRNA 测序和比较分析。

结果

与对照组相比，NPC 患者的香农指数和辛普森指数的 NLF 微生物 α 多样性显着降低。通过主成分分析得出的 Beta 多样性表现出 NPC 患者和健康对照的分离模式。NPC患者组和健康对照组之间有31个属有显着差异。17 种细菌的丰度与原发肿瘤大小和侵袭淋巴结大小相关。功能基因预测分析显示，9个基因功能通路在两组间存在显着差异。

结论

我们的研究结果表明，鼻咽癌患者的鼻咽微生物群与健康对照组不同，提示鼻咽微环境可能与鼻咽癌有关。