Bacterial and fungal microflora in surgically removed lung cancer samples

Abstract

BackgroundClinical and experimental data suggest an association between the presence of bacterial and/or fungal infection and the development of different types of cancer, independently of chemotherapy-induced leukopenia. This has also been postulated for the development of lung cancer, however the prevalence and the exact species of the bacteria and fungi implicated, have not yet been described.AimTo determine the presence of bacterial and fungal microflora in surgically extracted samples of patients with lung cancer.Materials and methodsIn this single-center prospective, observational study, tissue samples were surgically extracted from 32 consecutive patients with lung cancer, and reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to identify the presence of bacteria and fungi strains.ResultsThe analysis of the electrophoresis data pointed out diversity between the samples and the strains that were identified. Mycoplasma strains were identified in all samples. Strains that appeared more often were Staphylococcus epidermidis, Streptococcus mitis and Bacillus strains, followed in descending frequency by Chlamydia, Candida, Listeria, and Haemophilus influenza. In individual patients Legionella pneumophila and Candida tropicalis were detected.ConclusionsA diversity of pathogens could be identified in surgically extracted tissue samples of patients with lung cancer, with mycoplasma strains being present in all samples. These results point to an etiologic role for chronic infection in lung carcinogenesis. Confirmation of these observations and additional studies are needed to further characterize the etiologic role of inflammation in lung carcinogenesis.

Comparison between transthoracic lung ultrasound and a clinical method in confirming the position of double-lumen tube in thoracic anesthesia. A pilot study

“…20,21 Another difference lies in the fact that no false negatives were obtained in the aforementioned study, while we obtained 11 such results using the clinical method, and 1 using ultrasound. In pulmonary resection for suspicion of cancer, both lung separation and isolation are sometimes required.…”

Mycoplasma hyorhinis–Encoded Purine Nucleoside Phosphorylase: Kinetic Properties and Its Effect on the Cytostatic Potential of Purine-Based Anticancer Drugs

“…for the natural substrates of PNP Hyor , for 2-chloro-29-deoxyadenosine (cladribine) and 2-fluoroadenine-arabino-furanoside (fludarabine), and for P i were determined using nonlinear regression analysis (using GraphPad Prism 5) from data obtained in at least two independent experiments. at ASPET Journals on May 11, 2018 molpharm.aspetjournals.org Huang et al, 2001;Pehlivan et al, 2004Pehlivan et al, , 2005Yang et al, 2010;Apostolou et al, 2011;Barykova et al, 2011;Urbanek et al, 2011;Erturhan et al, 2013) and other prokaryotes (reviewed by Mager, 2006;Cummins and Tangney, 2013) have been found to associate preferentially with tumor cell tissue in cancer patients, our findings may be of relevance for cancer chemotherapy and may argue for a personalized treatment schedule based on the microbiotic tumor environment. A drug administration protocol combining certain anticancer purine derivative drugs with a PNP inhibitor could therefore increase therapeutic efficiency.…”

“…They are a common source of cell culture contamination, and infection often remains unnoticed. Clinically, these bacteria have been increasingly reported to colonize preferentially human tumor tissue in cancer patients (Chan et al, 1996;Kidder et al, 1998;Huang et al, 2001;Pehlivan et al, 2004Pehlivan et al, , 2005Yang et al, 2010;Apostolou et al, 2011;Barykova et al, 2011;Urbanek et al, 2011;Erturhan et al, 2013). Therefore, a controlled mycoplasma infection of tumor cell cultures in vitro may serve as an assay model to study the effect of prokaryotes on cancer chemotherapy.…”

Dual Functionality nanobioconjugates: a New Tool for Intracellular Bacterial Targeting in Cancer cells?

“…While some bacteria naturally reside intracellularly within the cells, others prefer to hang out in the extracellular matrix of the cancer tissue [21,22]. It may also so happen that in some cases, the bacteria co-exist in both locations [23,24]. These situations demand the development of nanoscaffolds with spatio-temporal tunability and multiscale drug release profiles.…”