Distinct colon mucosa microbiomes associated with Tubular Adenomas and Serrated Polyps

Background: Colorectal cancer is the second most deadly and third most common cancer in the world. Its development is heterogenous, with multiple mechanisms of carcinogenesis. Two distinct mechanisms include the adenoma-carcinoma sequence and the serrated pathway. The gut microbiome has been identified as a key player in the adenoma-carcinoma sequence, but its role in serrated carcinogenesis is less clear. In this study, we characterized the gut microbiome of 140 polyp-free and polyp-bearing individuals using colon mucosa and fecal samples to determine if microbiome composition was associated with each of the two key pathways.
Methods: Characterization of the gut microbiome was performed using a combination of amplicon and shotgun sequencing. Microbial taxonomy was assigned, and we compared the diversity and composition of different sampling methods within the same individual. Additionally, we also compared the microbial diversity and composition of mucosal samples from polyp-free, tubu...