One size might fit all: Indole-3-propionic acid potentiates pan-cancer immunotherapy.

Microbial-based therapies have the potential to combat immunotherapy resistance, extending the boundaries of oncological therapeutics. In a recent issue of Cell, Jia et al. demonstrates an example of microbial collaboration to produce a postbiotic that promotes the stemness program of CD8+ T cells to augment immunotherapy at the pan-cancer level.

Microbiome and lung cancer: carcinogenic mechanisms, early cancer diagnosis, and promising microbial therapies.

Microbiomes in the lung, gut, and oral cavity are correlated with lung cancer initiation and progression. While correlations have been preliminarily established in earlier studies, delving into microbe-mediated carcinogenic mechanisms will extend our understanding from correlation to causation. Building upon the causative relationships between microbiome and lung cancer, a novel concept of microbial biomarkers has emerged, mainly encompassing cancer-specific bacteria and circulating microbiome DNA. They might function as noninvasive liquid biopsy techniques for lung cancer early detection. Furthermore, potential microbial therapies have displayed initial efficacy in lung cancer treatment, providing multiple avenues for therapeutic intervention. Herein, we will discuss the molecular mechanisms and signaling pathways through which microbes influence lung cancer initiation and development. Additionally, we will summarize recent findings on microbial biomarkers as a member of tumor liquid biopsy techniques and provide an overview of the latest advances in various microbe-assisted/mediated therapeutic approaches for lung cancer.

Into the era of mycobiome-driven cancer research.

The cancer mycobiome has recently become a research hotspot. While the intratumor mycobiota is implicated in cancer initiation and progression, the gut mycobiota functions as biomarkers for cancer diagnosis and treatment. In this forum article we highlight the involvement of the mycobiome in correlation-, causation-, and prediction-oriented cancer research and discuss the potential of this burgeoning field.

Beyond probiotics: postbiotics sensitize cancer cells to immune checkpoint inhibitors.

Accumulated research corroborates the feasibility of microbial antitumor therapies, enriching the diversity of cancer therapeutics. Recently, Ferrari et al. revealed the role of postbiotics in sensitizing cancer cells to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) and synergizing immunotherapy. Particularly, phytosphingosine induces upstream MYD88/NF-κB and downstream NLRC5 activation, enhances T cell effector responses, and inhibits tumor growth.