Microbiota and chronic inflammation as targets for colorectal cancer prevention

Abstract

Recent findings have disclosed the complexity of large bowel microbiota which includes bacteria, viruses and unicellular eukaryotes. Bacteria represents 90% of human gut microbiota. A relevant percentage of colorectal cancers is considered to depend from bowel microbes. An additional recent achievement has been the finding that chronic inflammation has a promoting role in the onset of colorectal cancer (CRC), as well as in progression and resistance to treatment. An emerging concept is that diet, microbiota and inflammation have a complex interplay. All this novel information has indeed produced a paradigm change in our understanding the pathobiology of CRC. It is our opinion that personalized or population-based CRC prevention strategies can be derived by the information gained by the integrative genomics approaches based on modern profiling and sequencing technologies, which allow the understanding of the key molecular nodes of this interplay and identify novel targets as well as intermediate endpoints to monitor the efficacy of intervention.