fragilis, enteropathogenic Escherichia coli, and Fusobacterium spp. [149-151]. Species of Odoribacter and Akkermansia genera were also found enriched in colons of tumor-bearing mice [152] and some fecal Archaea, such as

Methanobacteriales, were found to correlate with colorectal cancer development [153]. Recently, Fusobacterium nucleatum selleck kinase inhibitor has been shown to induce the expansion and activation of tumor-promoting myeloid cells [150, 151] and to activate β-catenin/Wnt signaling by the binding of its FadA adhesion to E-cadherin [150, 151]. However, none of these species have been formally proven to be a human carcinogen by showing disease prevention following their elimination from the host [149]. Although these individual bacterial species may, in isolation, be able to induce carcinogenesis, they might also, via various mechanisms, including quorum sensing and the secretion of hormones and antibacterial factors, act synergistically to modify the microbiota composition inducing disease-promoting dysbiosis [149]. In particular, in two different mouse models of intestinal carcinogenesis, it was shown that polyps, as compared to contiguous healthy tissue, had increased permeability in the epithelial barrier and enhanced transmucosal

bacterial translocation [154, 155]. The translocated microbiota was required for polyp progression Selleck PKC412 by inducing inflammation and the production of cancer-promoting IL-6, IL-11,

IL-23, IL-17, and IL-22 [154, 155]. In the experimental model of colitis-associated colon cancer that utilizes the carcinogen azoxymethane followed by tumor promotion with the colitis-inducing dextran sulfate sodium, GF animals have been described, in different studies, to be either more resistant or more susceptible to carcinogenesis [156, 157]. These opposite results might be explained by the fact that the gut microbiota plays dual, contrasting roles in carcinogenesis as mediated by epithelial injury: the microbiota contributes to epithelial cell aminophylline damage, genetic instability, and mutation in part by inducing the secretion of secreting DNA-damaging reactive oxygen and nitrogen species, and by downregulating the expression of DNA repair genes [87, 158]; however, the microbiota is also required for efficient mucosal repair following epithelial damage [141, 147, 159]. The gut commensal microbiota, in addition to the effect described above on local intestinal carcinogenesis, has also been shown to modulate carcinogenesis in distant sterile sites. For example, colonic infection with H. hepaticus mediates complex opposing effects on both intestinal and distant carcinogenesis. Colonic H. hepaticus infection has been shown to enhance intestinal and colon carcinogensis in APCmin/+ mice and, through the induction of IL-22 in innate lymphoid cells, in azoxymethane-treated Rag2−/− mice [145, 160]. Interestingly, H.