Comparative analysis of racial differences in breast tumor microbiomeOriginal paper
Karen Pendergrass is a microbiome researcher specializing in microbiome-targeted interventions (MBTIs). She systematically analyzes scientific literature to identify microbial patterns, develop hypotheses, and validate interventions. As the founder of the Microbiome Signatures Database, she bridges microbiome research with clinical practice. In 2012, based on her own investigative research, she became the first documented case of FMT for Celiac Disease, four years before the first published case study.
Read MoreWhat was studied?
Researchers examined whether breast tumor tissue harbors race-specific microbiota. They used 16S rRNA sequencing on retrospective tumor and matched normal adjacent tissue (NAT) from Black non-Hispanic (BNH) and White non-Hispanic (WNH) women with triple negative (TNBC) or triple positive (TPBC) breast cancer.
How was it studied?
The team sequenced tumor and NAT samples from 7 BNH and 6 WNH TNBC patients, plus 3 BNH and 7 WNH TPBC patients, then verified findings in a second set of 10 additional WNH TNBC pairs. Genome-wide SNP admixture analysis confirmed each patient's self-reported ancestry.
What did they find?
Shannon diversity was significantly lower in BNH TNBC tumor tissue than in matched NAT, while WNH TNBC showed the opposite pattern, higher diversity in tumor than NAT. Unweighted PCoA showed distinct clustering of tumor versus NAT microbiota in both racial cohorts, and specific phyla and genera, including Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and unclassified Bradyrhizobiaceae, differed significantly between BNH and WNH tissues.
Why it matters
The findings suggest race-associated differences in breast tumor microbiota may contribute to disparities in TNBC aggressiveness and outcomes between Black and White women. This points toward the microbiome as a possible biological factor underlying breast cancer health disparities.