Endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle biopsy as a tool for studying the intra-tumoral microbiome in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma: a pilot study

• Published in: Scientific reports 2022-01, Vol.12 (1), p.107-107, Article 107
• Main Authors: Chu, Chia-Sheng, Yang, Chi-Ying, Yeh, Chun-Chieh, Lin, Ro-Ting, Chen, Chi-Ching, Bai, Li-Yuan, Hung, Mien-Chie, Lin, Chun-Che, Wu, Chun-Ying, Lin, Jaw-Town
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 631/326/107; 631/67/1504/1713; Adenocarcinoma; Aged; Bacteria - genetics; Bacteria - growth & development; Biopsy; Carcinoma, Pancreatic Ductal - microbiology; Carcinoma, Pancreatic Ductal - pathology; Endoscopic Ultrasound-Guided Fine Needle Aspiration; Endoscopy; Female; High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Immune response; Male; Microbiomes; Microbiota; Middle Aged; multidisciplinary; Next-generation sequencing; Pancreatic cancer; Pancreatic Neoplasms - microbiology; Pancreatic Neoplasms - pathology; Paraffin; Pilot Projects; Predictive Value of Tests; Prospective Studies; Ribotyping; rRNA 16S; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Taxonomy; Testing; Tissues; Tumor Microenvironment; Tumors; Ultrasonic imaging; Ultrasound; Variable region
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-04095-w

A new approach by investigating the intra-tumoral microbiome raised great interest because they may influence the host immune response and natural history of the disease. However, previous studies on the intra-tumoral microbiome of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) were mostly based on examining the formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tumor specimens. This study aims to investigate the feasibility of using endoscopic ultrasound-guided fine-needle biopsy (EUS-FNB) as a complementary procedure of surgical biopsy to obtain adequate fresh pancreatic cancer tissue for intra-tumoral microbial research. This was a prospective pilot study performed at a single tertiary referral center. We obtained pancreatic cancer tissue by EUS-FNB and surgical biopsy, respectively. We amplified the V3-V4 hyper-variable region of bacterial 16S ribosomal ribonucleic acid (rRNA) genes, constructed a pair-end library, and performed high-throughput sequencing. From August 2020 to November 2020, nine eligible patients with PDAC were enrolled in this study. The intra-tumoral microbiome profile was successfully generated from the PDAC cancer tissue obtained by EUS-FNB as well as by surgical biopsy. There was no significant difference in intra-tumoral alpha-diversity or bacterial taxonomic composition between tissues obtained by EUS-FNB and by surgical biopsy. EUS-FNB can collect sufficient fresh cancer tissue for microbiome analyses without complication. The intra-tumoral microbiome profile in tissues obtained by EUS-FNB had similar alpha-diversity and taxonomic profiles with those obtained by surgical biopsy. It implicated, except for surgical biopsy, EUS-FNB can be another valid and valuable tool for studying intra-tumoral microbiome in patients with resectable and unresectable PDAC.