Abstract:
Objective To investigate the dominant intestinal flora in patients at different stages of colorectal cancer and its effect on the progression of colorectal cancer.
Methods Patients with colorectal cancer (group C), with adenomatous polyps (group A), and healthy subjects (group N) treated in Affiliated Hospital of Weifang Medical University from January 2020 to May 2021 were recruited; 20 of each were assigned into groups C, A and N, respectively. Their feces were collected, as well as tumor, polyp and intestinal wall tissues from each group, respectively. The feces collected from each group were sequenced by 16s RNA technology, and the abundance and diversity of fecal microorganisms in the three groups were compared; the expression levels of IL-6 in tumor tissues of group C, polyp tissues of group A and intestinal wall tissues of group N were detected by immunohistochemistry.
Results The rarefaction curve shows that all samples contain different numbers of OTU. The analysis of α diversity, β diversity, and PCoA showed that there were great differences in the abundance and diversity of microflora among different samples and groups. LEfSe analysis showed that the bacteria with the most significant differences were Prevotellaceae in group C, Enterobacteriaceae and Erysipelotrichaceae in group A, and Ruminococcaceae and Bifidobacteriaceae in group N. The results of immunohistochemistry showed that the positive rate of IL-6 in group C was higher than that in group A and N.
Conclusions For all three groups, the abundance and diversity of intestinal flora in each sample are different. Each group has significantly different community structures showing the phenomenon of small sample difference within the group and large sample difference between the groups; the difference between the groups is statistically significant (P<0.05). Colorectal cancer may be related to Prevotellaceae, while adenomatous polyps may be related to Enterobacteriaceae and Erysipelotrichaceae. The progression of colorectal cancer may be related to IL-6.