Tumor-colonized Streptococcus mutans metabolically reprograms tumor microenvironment and promotes oral squamous cell carcinoma.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) remains a major death cause in head and neck cancers, but the exact pathogenesis mechanisms of OSCC are largely unclear.

Results

Saliva derived from OSCC patients but not healthy controls (HCs) significantly promotes OSCC development and progression in rat models, and metabolomic analyses reveal saliva of OSCC patients but not HCs and OSCC tissues but not adjacent non-tumor tissues contain higher levels of kynurenic acid (KYNA). Furthermore, large amounts of Streptococcus mutans (S. mutans) colonize in OSCC tumor tissues, and such intratumoral S. mutans mediates KYNA overproductions via utilizing its protein antigen c (PAc). KYNA shifts the cellular types in the tumor microenvironment (TME) of OSCC and predominantly expedites th

SUBMITTER: Zhou J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11452938 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature