In a new study from The Institute of Cancer Research, researchers found common gut bacteria can fuel the growth of prostate cancers and allow them to evade the effects of treatment.
They showed how gut bacteria contribute to the progression of advanced prostate cancers and their resistance to hormone therapy—by providing an alternative source of growth-promoting androgens, or male hormones.
Hormone therapy is the standard of care for advanced prostate cancer and works by lowering levels of androgens.
But researchers found that low androgen levels in patients can drive the expansion of gut bacteria, which can become hormone factories to sustain prostate cancer growth.
Bacterial ‘fingerprints’ identified by scientists may help pick out patients at high risk of developing resistance to treatment who could benefit from strategies to manipulate their ‘microbiome’.
For example, men could undergo a fecal transplant or take a yoghurt drink enriched with favorable bacteria.
In the study, the team used mice and patient samples to investigate the role of gut bacteria in prostate cancer growth and progression.
They found that getting rid of all gut bacteria in mice with prostate cancer slowed tumor growth and delayed the emergence of hormone resistance.
They also found that transplanting feces from mice with hormone-resistant prostate cancer into mice with low androgen levels that had not yet developed resistance encouraged tumor growth.
To translate the findings into humans, researchers analysed the gut bacteria from patients.
They also analyzed microbial genetic material from the stool of men with prostate cancer and identified a specific bacterium—Ruminococcus – that may play a major role in the development of resistance.
In contrast, the bacterium Prevotella stercorea was associated with favourable clinical outcomes.
Researchers then found favourable and unfavourable bacterial ‘fingerprints’ linked to prostate cancer outcome, which could help identify men who could benefit from strategies to manipulate the microbiome.
These findings suggest that the initiation of hormone therapy for prostate cancer can trigger ‘gut bugs’ to start producing androgen hormones.
These androgens can then sustain prostate cancer’s growth and drive resistance to hormone therapy—worsening men’s survival outcomes.
If you care about prostate cancer, please read studies about this daily beverage may lower prostate cancer risk and findings of new prostate cancer test could avoid unnecessary biopsies.
For more information about prostate cancer and your health, please see recent studies about this prostate disease drug may help lower risk of Parkinson’s disease and results showing that this healthy diet may reduce prostate cancer development.
The study is published in the journal Science. One author of the study is Professor Johann de Bono.
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