Speaker Abstract RCMM 2017: Associate Professor Dr. Neoh Hui-min

Microbiome in colorectal cancer: Our Local Experience

¹Hui-min Neoh*, ¹Muhammad Afiq Osman, ¹Nurul Syakima Ab Mutalib, ¹Siok Fong Chin, ²Luqman Mazlan, ³Chai Soon Ngiu, ¹Mia Yang Ang and ¹Rahman Jamal

¹UKM Medical Molecular Biology Institute; ²Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine; ³Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur

In Malaysia, colorectal cancer (CRC) is the most common cancer for men and the second most common for women. There is growing evidence that the gut microbiome (bacteria which resides in the colon) is associated with CRC. Research in different populations of the world has found that different species of gut microbiome bacteria are found in CRC patients compared to healthy controls. Several studies have shown that gut microbiome may trigger specific signaling pathways and provoke intestinal inflammation that leads to the development of CRC. Others have further analysed that different species of gut microbiome residents are found in CRC patients as compared to healthy controls. Taken together, these findings seem to support the concept that microbiota plays some important functional role in the pathogenesis of CRC, but causality remains to be determined. In our study, biopsy tissue samples were collected from 18 CRC patients and 18 subjects with normal colonoscopy results (controls). 16S Metagenomics Sequencing on DNA extracted from these tissues were carried out using the Illumina® MiSeq platform with primers targeting the V3/V4 region. Bioinformatics analysis was carried out using the QIIME v1.9.1 and One Codex software based on the Greengenes database v2013.08. Bacterial genus Fusobacterium and Bacteroides were found to be abundant in Malaysian CRC patients compared to controls, suggesting the association of these bacteria with CRC.