Abstract
The majority of the epithelial surfaces of our body, and the digestive tract, respiratory and urogenital systems, are colonized by a vast number of bacteria, archaea, fungi, protozoans, and viruses. These microbiota, particularly those of the intestines, play an important, beneficial role in digestion, metabolism, and the synthesis of vitamins. Their metabolites stimulate cytokine production by the human host, which are used against potential pathogens. The composition of the microbiota is influenced by several internal and external factors, including diet, age, disease, and lifestyle. Such changes, called dysbiosis, may be involved in the development of various conditions, such as metabolic diseases, including metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes mellitus, Hashimoto’s thyroidis and Graves’ disease; they can also play a role in nervous system disturbances, such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and depression. An association has also been found between gut microbiota dysbiosis and cancer. Our health is closely associated with the state of our microbiota, and their homeostasis. The aim of this review is to describe the associations between human gut microbiota and cancer, and examine the potential role of gut microbiota in anticancer therapy.
Highlights
The gut microbiota comprises the organisms that live in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract
We describe the association between changes of human gut microbiota and the development of selected cancers
Newborns delivered by Cesarean section typically present different gut microbiota, these being more characteristic of the microbiota of the skin from the hand that touches them after birth [75]; in these newborns, the most abundant bacteria are Staphylococcus, Corynebacterium, and Propionibacterium [74]
Summary
The gut microbiota comprises the organisms that live in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. The adult human gut microbiota consists of 1013–1014 microorganisms/mL of luminal content, with their total weight estimated to be 1.5 kg [1]. The human gut microbiota is composed of bacteria, archaea, fungi, protozoa, and viruses, in which bacteria dominate. The genome of the human microbiota includes 100 times more genes than the human genome and 10 times more cells than the human body [2]. The human microbiota is characterized by three groups of bacteria, viz. Symbionts, commensals and pathobionts, which coexist in a stable balance in healthy humans. Symbionts possess a health-promoting effect, commensals demonstrate a neutral effect, i.e., no positive and no negative, whereas pathobionts have the potential to induce pathology [3]
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