Gut microbiota imbalance in colorectal cancer patients, the risk factor of COVID-19 mortality

Changjing Cai; Xiangyang Zhang; Yihan Liu; Edward Shen; Ziyang Feng; Cao Guo; Ying Han; Yanhong Ouyang; Hong Shen

doi:10.1186/s13099-021-00466-w

Gut microbiota imbalance in colorectal cancer patients, the risk factor of COVID-19 mortality

Gut Pathog. 2021 Dec 4;13(1):70. doi: 10.1186/s13099-021-00466-w.

Authors

Changjing Cai^#^{1

2}, Xiangyang Zhang^#^{1

2}, Yihan Liu^{1

2}, Edward Shen³, Ziyang Feng¹, Cao Guo^{1

2}, Ying Han^{1

4}, Yanhong Ouyang⁵, Hong Shen^{6

7

8}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Oncology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China.
² Key Laboratory for Molecular Radiation Oncology of Hunan Province, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.
³ Department of Life Science, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4L8, Canada.
⁴ Department of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
⁵ Department of Emergency, Hainan General Hospital, Hainan Affiliated Hospital of Hainan Medical University, 19 Xiuhua Road, Haikou, 570311, Hainan, China. ouyang1893@126.com.
⁶ Department of Oncology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China. hongshen2000@csu.edu.cn.
⁷ Key Laboratory for Molecular Radiation Oncology of Hunan Province, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China. hongshen2000@csu.edu.cn.
⁸ National Clinical Research Center for Geriatric Disorders, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China. hongshen2000@csu.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: COVID-19 pandemic is sweeping across the world. Previous studies have shown that gut microbiota is associated with COVID-19, and operational taxonomic unit (OTU) composed of Blautia genus, Lactobacillus genus, and Ruminococcus genus of Firmicutes is correlated with the severity of COVID-19. Gut microbiota imbalance in colorectal cancer patients may lead to the variation of OTU.

Results: Based on the GMrepo database, the gut microbiota of 1374 patients with colorectal neoplasms and 27,329 healthy people was analyzed to investigate the differences in the abundance of microbes between colorectal neoplasms patients and healthy people. Furthermore, We collected feces samples from 12 patients with colorectal cancer and 8 healthy people in Xiangya hospital for metabolomic analysis to investigate the potential mechanisms. Our study showed that the abundance of Blautia and Ruminococcus was significantly increased in colorectal neoplasms, which may increase the severity of COVID-19. The gender and age of patients may affect the severity of COVID-19 by shaping the gut microbiota, but the BMI of patients does not.

Conclusions: Our work draws an initial point that gut microbiota imbalance is a risk factor of COVID-19 mortality and gut microbiota may provide a new therapeutic avenue for colorectal cancer patients.

Keywords: COVID-19; Colorectal cancer; Gut microbiota; Mortality; Prognosis.

Abstract

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