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Cancer immunotherapy in 2017

The breakthrough of the microbiota

Nature Reviews Immunology volume 18, pages 87–88 (2018)Cite this article

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In 2017, epidemiological studies in humans and experiments in mouse models showed that the intestinal microbiota determines the effectiveness of anticancer immunotherapies. As such the microbiota offers new prognostic biomarkers and shows promise as a target for future antineoplastic treatments.

Over the past few years, a multidimensional network of functional connections has emerged between the gut microbiome, intestinal physiology, whole-body metabolism, the immune system and neoplastic disease. Moreover, experimental exploration of this network has become possible owing to rampant technological progress. These advances include improved high-throughput microbiome sequencing technologies aided by refined databases; culturomics to render an ever-growing portion of the microbiota cultivatable and hence investigable; mass spectrometry and single-cell transcriptomics for in-depth characterization of individual enteric, immune or neoplastic cells; high-throughput metabolomics applicable to distinct organs; and — last but not least — sophisticated bioinformatics tools for data deconvolution and integration. Thus, 2017 has been marked by methodological advances that have allowed us to describe the impact of individual bacterial species on the intestinal barrier and organism-wide immune responses1,2.

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Figure 1: Impact of bacteria on immuno-oncology.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are supported by grants from the Institut National contre le Cancer, Ligue Nationale contre le Cancer, Swiss Bridge Foundation, ISREC, RHU-TORINO-LUMIERE, SIRIC Socrates at Gustave Roussy and Seerave Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Women's and Children's Health, Guido Kroemer is at Equipe 11 labellisée par la Ligue contre le Cancer, Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers; Paris, France; Cell Biology and Metabolomics platforms, Gustave Roussy Cancer Campus; Villejuif, France; INSERM U1138, Paris, France; Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité; Paris, France; Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France; Pôle de Biologie, Hôpital Européen Georges Pompidou, AP-HP, Paris, France; and Karolinska Institute, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden.,

    Guido Kroemer

  2. Paris, France,

    Guido Kroemer

  3. Laurence Zitvogel is at INSERM U1015, labellisée Ligue Française Contre le Cancer, Université Paris-Saclay, Gustave Roussy Immuno-Oncology Programme, Paris, France.,

    Laurence Zitvogel

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  1. Guido Kroemer
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  2. Laurence Zitvogel
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Correspondence to Guido Kroemer or Laurence Zitvogel.

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Competing interests

G.K and L.Z. are co-founders of everImmune, a biotech company that identifies bacteria for cancer treatment.

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Kroemer, G., Zitvogel, L. The breakthrough of the microbiota. Nat Rev Immunol 18, 87–88 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nri.2018.4

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