1. Academic Validation
  2. Interplay between gut microbial communities and metabolites modulates pan-cancer immunotherapy responses

Interplay between gut microbial communities and metabolites modulates pan-cancer immunotherapy responses

  • Cell Metab. 2025 Apr 1;37(4):806-823.e6. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2024.12.013.
Xiaoqiang Zhu 1 Muni Hu 2 Xiaowen Huang 2 Lingxi Li 2 Xiaolin Lin 3 Xiaoyan Shao 4 Jiantao Li 5 Xiaoyue Du 6 Xinjia Zhang 7 Rongrong Sun 4 Tianying Tong 2 Yanru Ma 2 Lijun Ning 2 Yi Jiang 2 Yue Zhang 2 Yuqi Shao 2 Zhenyu Wang 2 Yilu Zhou 2 Jinmei Ding 2 Ying Zhao 2 Baoqin Xuan 2 Hongyang Zhang 7 Youwei Zhang 4 Jie Hong 2 Jing-Yuan Fang 2 Xiuying Xiao 8 Bo Shen 9 Songbing He 10 Haoyan Chen 11
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 State Key Laboratory of Systems Medicine for Cancer, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Key Laboratory of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Ministry of Health, Shanghai Institute of Digestive Disease, NHC Key Laboratory of Digestive Diseases, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Cancer Institute, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China; Department of Gastroenterology, Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital, School of Medicine, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.
  • 2 State Key Laboratory of Systems Medicine for Cancer, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Key Laboratory of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Ministry of Health, Shanghai Institute of Digestive Disease, NHC Key Laboratory of Digestive Diseases, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Cancer Institute, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
  • 3 Department of Oncology, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China.
  • 4 Department of Medical Oncology, Xuzhou Central Hospital, Clinical School of Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China.
  • 5 Shanghai Lung Cancer Center, Shanghai Chest Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
  • 6 Department of Oncology, The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Jiangsu Cancer Hospital, Jiangsu Institute of Cancer Research, Nanjing, China.
  • 7 School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China.
  • 8 Department of Oncology, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China. Electronic address: xiaoxiuying2002@163.com.
  • 9 Department of Oncology, The Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Jiangsu Cancer Hospital, Jiangsu Institute of Cancer Research, Nanjing, China. Electronic address: shenbo987@njmu.edu.cn.
  • 10 Department of General Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu, China. Electronic address: hesongbing1979@suda.edu.cn.
  • 11 State Key Laboratory of Systems Medicine for Cancer, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Key Laboratory of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Ministry of Health, Shanghai Institute of Digestive Disease, NHC Key Laboratory of Digestive Diseases, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Cancer Institute, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China. Electronic address: haoyanchen@sjtu.edu.cn.
Abstract

Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy has revolutionized Cancer treatment but remains effective in only a subset of patients. Emerging evidence suggests that the gut microbiome and its metabolites critically influence ICB efficacy. In this study, we performed a multi-omics analysis of fecal microbiomes and metabolomes from 165 patients undergoing anti-programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1)/programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) therapy, identifying microbial and metabolic entities associated with treatment response. Integration of data from four public metagenomic datasets (n = 568) uncovered cross-cohort microbial and metabolic signatures, validated in an independent cohort (n = 138). An integrated predictive model incorporating these features demonstrated robust performance. Notably, we characterized five response-associated enterotypes, each linked to specific Bacterial taxa and metabolites. Among these, the metabolite phenylacetylglutamine (PAGln) was negatively correlated with response and shown to attenuate anti-PD-1 efficacy in vivo. This study sheds light on the interplay among the gut microbiome, the gut metabolome, and immunotherapy response, identifying potential biomarkers to improve treatment outcomes.

Keywords

enterotype; fecal microbiota transplantation; gut microbiome; immunotherapy; metabolomics; phenylacetylglutamine.

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