Microbial restitution in CRC tumor inhibition by natural agents

The current study was undertaken to investigate the effect of differentially formulated polyphenolic compound Essential Turmeric Oil-Curcumin (ETO-Cur), and Tocotrienolrich fraction (TRF) vitamin E isomers on colorectal cancer (CRC) cells that produce aggressive tumor. Combination of ETO-Cur and TRF was used to determine the combinatorial effects of ETO-Cur and TFR mediated on inhibition of HCT-116 xenograft in SCID mice. 16S rRNA gene sequence profiling was performed to determine the outcome of gut microbial communities in mice feces between control and ETO-Cur-TRF groups. For metagenomics analysis to characterize the microbial communities, multiple software/tools were used, including Quantitative Insights into Microbial Ecology (QIIME) processing tool. We found ETO-Cur and TRF to synergize and that the combination of ETO-Cur-TRF significantly inhibited growth of HCT-116 xenografts in SCID mice. This was associated with a marked alteration in microbial communities and increased microbial OTU (operation taxonomic unit) number. The relative abundance of taxa was increased and the level of microbial diversity after 34 days of combinatorial treatment was found to be 44% higher over the control. Our data suggest that ETO-Cur-TRF show synergistic effects in inhibiting colorectal cancer cell proliferation in mouse xenografts in vivo, and might induce changes in microbial diversity in mice.