Transcriptome analysis of tissue microbiota diversity in tumor and non-tumor lymph nodes

Abstract

Metagenomic studies in recent years have demonstrated that all tissues of the human body studied by genomic and transcriptomic sequencing methods, both in pathological processes and in normality, contain fragments of DNA and RNA from a variety of microorganisms. The composition of tissue microbiota and its relationship with development of pathological changes are still poorly understood, despite increasing number of studies in this area every year. In this study, gene expression of the lymph node microbiome in reactive follicular hyperplasia and follicular lymphoma was investigated. To study expression of lymph node microbiome genes in reactive follicular hyperplasia and follicular lymphoma. The work included 38 biopsy samples of lymph nodes with follicular lymphoma of different cytological subtypes and 10 biopsy samples of lymph nodes with reactive follicular hyperplasia. Verification of diagnosis was carried out using standard histological, histochemical and immunohistochemical methods. Using sequencing method, the transcriptome was examined. Statistical analysis and data visualization were performed using the R programming language (version 4.2.1). Tumor lymph nodes are characterized by large Simpson and Shannon alpha diversity values (p-value = 0.026465 and p-value = 0.007122, respectively). Two clusters were discovered, characterized by different levels of relative abundance of microorganisms. It has been proven that diversity of microorganisms present in tumor tissue and their number are statistically significantly higher than corresponding indicators in the lymph nodes with follicular hyperplasia.