Human urine microbiota (UM) research has uncovered associations between composition of microbial communities of the lower urinary tract and various disease states including several reports on the putative link between UM and bladder cancer (BC).
The aim of this study was to investigate male UM in patients with BC and controls using catheterised urine specimens unlike in previous studies.
Urine samples were obtained in theatre after surgical prepping and draping using aseptic catheterisation. DNA was extracted and hypervariable region V4 of the 16S rRNA gene was amplified using 515F and 806R primers. Sequencing was performed on Illumina MiSeq platform. Sequencing data were processed using appropriate software tools. Alpha diversity measures were calculated and compared between groups. Prevalence Interval for Microbiome Evaluation was used to test differences in beta diversity.
A total of 63 samples were included in the analysis. Mean age of study subjects was 65.1 years (SD 12.5). Thirty-four men had bladder cancer and 29 participants were undergoing interventions for benign conditions (benign prostate hyperplasia or upper urinary tract stone disease). BC patients had lower UM richness and diversity than controls (83 vs. 139 operational taxonomic units, P = 0.015; Shannon index: 2.46 vs. 2.94, P = 0.049). There were specific taxa enriched in cancer (Veillonella, Varibaculum, Methylobacterium-Methylorubrum) and control groups (Pasteurella, Corynebacterium, Acinetobacter), respectively.
BC patients had lower bladder microbiota richness and diversity than controls. Specific genera were enriched in cancer and control groups, respectively. These results corroborate some of previous reports while contradicting others. Future microbiota research would benefit from parallel transcriptomic/metabolomic analysis.
Urologic oncology. 2022 Nov 16 [Epub ahead of print]
Jan Hrbáček, Vojtěch Tláskal, Pavel Čermák, Vítězslav Hanáček, Roman Zachoval
Department of Urology, 3rd Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, Prague and Thomayer University Hospital, Prague, Czech Republic. Electronic address: ., Laboratory of Environmental Microbiology, Institute of Microbiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic; Institute of Soil Biology and Biogeochemistry, Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Ceske Budejovice., Department of Clinical Microbiology, Thomayer University Hospital, Prague, Czech Republic., Department of Urology, 3rd Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, Prague and Thomayer University Hospital, Prague, Czech Republic.
PubMed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36402713