Russo E, Nannini G, Dinu M, Pagliai G, Sofi F, Amedei A. Exploring the food-gut axis in immunotherapy response of cancer patients. World J Gastroenterol 2020; 26(33): 4919-4932 [PMID: 32952339 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v26.i33.4919]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Amedeo Amedei, MSc, Associate Professor, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Florence, Viale Pieraccini 6, Florence 50134, Italy. amedeo.amedei@unifi.it
Research Domain of This Article
Immunology
Article-Type of This Article
Minireviews
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Edda Russo, Giulia Nannini, Monica Dinu, Giuditta Pagliai, Francesco Sofi, Amedeo Amedei, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Florence, Florence 50134, Italy
Francesco Sofi, Unit of Clinical Nutrition, Careggi University Hospital, Florence 50139, Italy
Author contributions: Russo E and Amedei A contributed to conceptualization; Russo E, Nannini G, Amedei A and Sofi F contributed to investigation; Russo E, Dinu M, Pagliai G and Nannini G contributed to writing; Russo E, Sofi F and Amedei A contributed to review, supervision and funding acquisition; Russo E and Nannini G contributed to editing; Russo E, Dinu M, and Nannini G contributed to visualization.
Supported bythe Italian Ministry of University and Research, the Foundation “Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze” FCR 2017; Italian Ministry of Health (Ricerca Finalizzata 2016), No. GR-2016-02361162.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Amedeo Amedei, MSc, Associate Professor, Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Florence, Viale Pieraccini 6, Florence 50134, Italy. amedeo.amedei@unifi.it
Received: May 29, 2020 Peer-review started: May 29, 2020 First decision: June 12, 2020 Revised: June 16, 2020 Accepted: August 22, 2020 Article in press: August 22, 2020 Published online: September 7, 2020 Processing time: 97 Days and 20.6 Hours
Abstract
Nowadays, immunotherapy is widely used to treat different cancer types as it boosts the body's natural defenses against the malignancy, with lower risk of adverse events compared to the traditional treatments. The immune system is able to control cancer growth but, unfortunately, many cancers take advantage of immune checkpoints pathways for the immune evasion. An intricate network of factors including tumor, host and environmental variables influence the individual response to immune checkpoints’ inhibitors. Between them, the gut microbiota (GM) has recently gained increasing attention because of its emerging role as a modulator of the immune response. Several studies analyzed the diversities between immunotherapy-sensitive and immunotherapy-resistant cohorts, evidencing that particular GM profiles were closely associated to treatment effect. In addition, other data documented that interventional GM modulation could effectively enhance efficacy and relieve resistance during immunotherapy treatment. Diet represents one of the major GM determinants, and ongoing studies are examining the role of the food-gut axis in immunotherapy treatment. Here, we review recent studies that described how variations of the GM affects patient’s responsivity to anti-cancer immunotherapy and how diet-related factors impact on the GM modulation in cancer, outlining potential future clinical directions of these recent findings.
Core tip: Diet is one of the major gut microbiota determinants; ongoing studies are examining the interaction between diet, gut microbiota and immunity. Diet-related factors and supplements appear to have effects on a patient’s responsivity to anti-cancer immunotherapy, via modulation of intestinal microbiota.
