Characterization of the gastric mucosal bacterial microbiota in patients with early gastric cancer

This case-control study investigates the role of the gastric mucosal bacterial microbiota in early gastric cancer (EGC). We recruited EGC patients and healthy controls at the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University. Gastric mucosal biopsies were collected from the antrum, body, and perilesional regions during endoscopy. To characterize the bacterial communities, we performed high-throughput 16S rRNA gene sequencing on an Illumina NovaSeq platform. The analysis focused on comparing bacterial diversity and composition between the EGC and healthy control groups. Key objectives included identifying potential bacterial biomarkers using LEfSe, building a predictive diagnostic model with Random Forest, analyzing bacterial interactions via co-occurrence networks, and predicting the functional capabilities of the microbiota using PICRUSt2.