Gut microbiota imbalance promotes the onset of colorectal cancer

The gastroenterology team at Henri-Mondor AP-HP Hospital and University Paris-Est Créteil, led by Professor Iradj Sobhani, together with teams from Inserm and the Institut Pasteur Molecular Microbial Pathogenesis Unit (U1202), led by Professor Philippe Sansonetti – holder of the Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Chair at the Collège de France –, have demonstrated that an imbalance in the gut microbiota, also known as "dysbiosis", promotes the onset of colorectal cancer. The teams, operating as the "Oncomix" group since April 2016, demonstrated that transplanting fecal flora from patients with colon cancer into mice caused lesions and epigenetic changes characteristic of the development of a malignant tumor.

The pilot study, funded by the French National Cancer Institute and promoted by the Paris Public Hospital Network (AP-HP) as part of a hospital program for clinical cancer research (PHRC-K), led to the development of a non-invasive blood test which identifies the epigenetic phenomenon associated with dysbiosis. The test was validated in 1,000 individuals. These findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

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