70P - The human intratumor mycobiome is significantly influenced by an individual's race

Background

Recently, the intratumor mycobiome has been characterized in 17,401 cancer patients, covering 35 cancer types from The Cancer Genome Atlas ( Narunsky-Haziza et al., 2022 ), revealing a previously overlooked aspect of cancer research. Moreover, Recent study showed that race is a key determinant of the human intratumor microbiome. We aimed to better understand the effects of patients’ demographic factors (age, sex, and race) on the intratumor mycobiome composition.

Methods

We analyzed the Narunsky-Haziza et al. de-contaminated and normalized intratumor fungal abundance data for 11 cancer types and 224 fungal species. We performed a systematic characterization of the tumor mycobiome across different cancer types using a propensity score algorithm, adjusting for the potential confounding factors of histological type and tumor stage.

Results

Fungus species abundances differed significantly between races in all cancer types. For example, in breast cancer, we identified 42 significantly differentially abundant fungal species in European vs. Asian, 45 species in European vs. African, and 56 in Asian vs. African. Notably, 19 fungal species Talaromyces marneffei, Scheffersomyces stipites, Debaryomyces fabryi, Lachancea lanzarotensis, Ogataea polymorpha, Tetrapisispora blattae, Fusarium proliferatum, Kazachstania Africana, Torulaspora delbrueckii, Naumovozyma castellii, Wickerhamomyces anomalus, Yamadazyma tenuis, Naumovozyma dairenensis, Sugiyamaella lignohabitans, Clavispora lusitaniae, Candida tropicalis, Vanderwaltozyma polyspora, Meyerozyma guilliermondii, Lachancea thermotolerans – had significantly different abundances in all three race comparisons. Moreover, regarding age (>65) and sex, only 5 fungal species abundance in stomach adenocarcinoma varied significantly for age and Malassezia sympodialis differed significantly with respect to sex. In thyroid carcinoma, 3 species varied by age and Cordyceps militaris for sex.

Conclusions

Our research reveals that the composition of the fungal community within tumors varies significantly across races, underscoring the importance of accounting for this demographic factor when conducting fungal-related analysis and clinical trials involving microbiota modulation.

Clinical trial identification

Editorial acknowledgement

Legal entity responsible for the study

The authors.

Funding

Edmond J. Safra Bioinformatics Center in Tel-Aviv University.

Disclosure

All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.