Current understanding of the human microbiome in glioma

Abstract

There is mounting evidence that the human microbiome is highly associated with a wide variety of central nervous system diseases. However, the link between the human microbiome and glioma is rarely noticed. The exact mechanism of microbiota to affect glioma remains unclear. Recent studies have demonstrated that the microbiome may affect the development, progress, and therapy of gliomas, including the direct impacts of the intratumoral microbiome and its metabolites, and the indirect effects of the gut microbiome and its metabolites. Glioma-related microbiome (gut microbiome and intratumoral microbiome) is associated with both tumor microenvironment and tumor immune microenvironment, which ultimately influence tumorigenesis, progression, and responses to treatment. In this review, we briefly summarize current knowledge regarding the role of the glioma-related microbiome, focusing on its gut microbiome fraction and a brief description of the intratumoral microbiome, and put forward the prospects in which microbiome can be applied in the future and some challenges still need to be solved.