See article, p. 403

The microbiome contributes to oncogenesis in a variety of tumor types in the intestinal tract where the gut microbiome is in direct contact with the tumor site. However, the effect of the microbiome in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) is not well understood. Pushalkar, Hundeyin, and colleagues investigated the role of gut bacteria in pancreatic tumorigenesis. When administered to wild-type mice via oral gavage, bacteria migrated into the pancreas, suggesting that intestinal bacteria may directly affect the pancreatic microenvironment, and, in both mice and humans, PDA had an increased bacterial abundance compared with normal pancreas. In a mouse model of pancreatic cancer, mice grown in germ-free conditions exhibited reduced disease progression. Similarly, treatment with antibiotics reduced the tumor burden, and repopulation with feces or select bacterial species from untreated PDA-bearing mice accelerated tumorigenesis, suggesting that the PDA microbiome promotes tumor progression. Bacterial ablation reduced immunosuppressive CD206+...

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