Intratumoral bacteria associate with response to neoadjuvant PD-1 blockade in oral squamous cell carcinoma

Wang et al. applied invasion–adhesion-directed expression sequencing (INVADEseq) to probe the intratumoral microbiome in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) patients who had been treated with neoadjuvant immunotherapy. Their research revealed that intratumoral bacteria play a significant role in immune activity and the efficacy of immunotherapy, identifying an effective immunotherapy-specific predictor of response for NICB. This underscores the impact of bacterial communities on the interactions of these CD8+ T cells with cDC1, highlighting their importance in immune responses.