AUTHOR=Walker Sidney P. , Tangney Mark , Claesson Marcus J. 

TITLE=Sequence-Based Characterization of Intratumoral Bacteria—A Guide to Best Practice

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Oncology

VOLUME=Volume 10 - 2020

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/oncology/articles/10.3389/fonc.2020.00179

DOI=10.3389/fonc.2020.00179

ISSN=2234-943X

ABSTRACT=Tumours are hospitable environments to bacteria and several recent studies on cancer patient samples have introduced the concept of an endogenous tumour microbiome. For a variety of reasons, this putative tumour microbiome is particularly challenging to investigate, and a failure to account for the various potential pitfalls will result in erroneous results and claims. Before this potentially extremely medically-significant habitat can be accurately characterised, a clear understanding of all potential confounding factors is required, and a best-practice approach should be developed and adopted.
This review summarises all of the potential issues confounding accurate bacterial DNA sequence analysis of the putative tumour microbiome, and offers solutions based on related research with the hope of assisting in the progression of research in this field.