An analysis of the metagenomic profiles of various colorectal cancer patients and healthy controls to try and identify distinct signatures between various stages of the disease.
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the leading causes of deaths worldwide and projected to increase substantially over the next decade with over 2.2 million new cases expected to arise by 2030. While much of the research into CRC has looked into the genetic mutations and genomic alterations that develop within a patient’s own cells, it is becoming increasingly more apparent that alterations in the gut microbiota composition can also influence the development, progression and response to therapy of this disease. By examining a patient’s own gut microbiome, it may be possible to gather information in a less invasive way than current methods and this information could potentially be used for therapeutic and prognostic purposes. This project represents the beginning of a meta-analysis study that aims to find distinct differences between healthy individuals and CRC patients as well as differences between CRC patients from different environments. Community profiling revealed an elevation of the Firmicutes phylum and Clostridia class in CRC patients versus healthy individuals and the presence of the Gammaproteobacteria class among Japanese CRC patients which was absent from the other two groups. Diversity at the phylum and class levels was much greater in the CRC patients versus the healthy individuals. Functional profiling revealed less distinctions overall, with many of the most abundant gene families identified being involved in essential cellular processes such as replication and energy production.