Project description:Diverse taxa of fungus kingdom are part of cancer related microbiota but which fungi induce pro-tumor immune responses and whether they impact specific cancer pathways are unclear. Here, we use Cladosporium cladosporioides to orally infect mice lacking Ikka in epithelial stem cells. This infection promotes systemic inflammation, acidic oral milieu with Proteobacteria expansion, and oral and skin squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) development. Double Stat3 and Ikka deletions reverse these phenotypes. We found in the serum of mouse, C. cladosporioides induces IL-17a and Il-1b production. To investigate what is happening in the oral environment as well as in the skin cells of mice, we conducted 10x genomics single cell RNA sequencing on mRNA in oral buccal tissues and skins from Ikka inducible ablated mouse with fungi treatment (Cladosporium cladosporioides).