Compositional differences in gastrointestinal microbiota in prostate cancer patients treated with androgen axis-targeted therapies
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41391-018-0061-x
A few main takeaways,
analysis identified significant compositional differences in the GI microbiota of men taking ATT, including a greater abundance of species previously linked to response to anti-PD-1 immunotherapy such as Akkermansia muciniphila and Ruminococcaceae spp. In functional analyses, we found an enriched representation of bacterial gene pathways involved in steroid biosynthesis and steroid hormone biosynthesis in the fecal microbiota of men taking oral ATT.
There are measurable differences in the GI microbiota of men receiving oral ATT. We speculate that oral hormonal therapies for prostate cancer may alter the GI microbiota, influence clinical responses to ATT
a screen of more than 1000 marketed non-antibiotic drugs against 40 representative GI bacterial strains found that nearly a quarter inhibited bacterial growth
The microbiome and systemic hormone levels
It has been reported that steroid biosynthesis occurs in prokaryotes [26, 27], and that certain species of bacteria are capable of metabolizing estrogen and androgen precursors and catabolizing estrogens and androgens thereby affecting systemic levels of these hormones [28,29,30]