2. Academic Validation
  3. Intratumor Mycoplasma promotes the initiation and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma

Intratumor Mycoplasma promotes the initiation and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma

  • Cell Rep. 2023 Dec 12;42(12):113563. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2023.113563.
Kailiang Qiao 1,  Jingxia Han 2,  Haohao Zhang 1,  Yinan Li 1,  Xiaohui Hou 1,  Yan Jia 2,  Yujie Sun 2,  Huan Wang 2,  Zheng Xu 2,  Haoyang Liu 2,  Heng Zhang 1,  Huijuan Liu 3,  Wei Zhang 4,  Tao Sun 5
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology and College of Pharmacy, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China.
  • 2 State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology and College of Pharmacy, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China; Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Drug Research, Tianjin International Joint Academy of Biomedicine, Tianjin 300457, China.
  • 3 State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology and College of Pharmacy, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China; Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Drug Research, Tianjin International Joint Academy of Biomedicine, Tianjin 300457, China. Electronic address: huijuan.liu@nankai.edu.cn.
  • 4 Department of Hepatobiliary Cancer, Research Center for Prevention and Treatment of Liver Cancer, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Tianjin 300040, China. Electronic address: zhangweitjch@163.com.
  • 5 State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology and College of Pharmacy, Nankai University, Tianjin 300350, China. Electronic address: tao.sun@nankai.edu.cn.
PMID: 38088929 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2023.113563
Abstract

The carcinogenesis and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are closely related to viral Infection and intestinal bacteria. However, little is known about bacteria within the HCC tumor microenvironment. Here, we showed that intratumoral Mycoplasma hyorhinis (M. hyorhinis) promoted the initiation and progression of HCC by enhancing nuclear ploidy. We quantified M. hyorhinis in clinical tissue specimens of HCC and observed that patients with high M. hyorhinis load had poor prognosis. We found that gastrointestinal M. hyorhinis can retrogradely infect the liver through the oral-duodenal-hepatopancreatic ampulla route. We further found that the increases in mononuclear polyploidy and Cancer stemness resulted from mitochondrial fission caused by intracellular M. hyorhinis. Mechanistically, M. hyorhinis Infection promoted the decay of mitochondrial fusion protein (MFN) 1 mRNA in an m6A-dependent manner. Our findings indicated that M. hyorhinis Infection promoted pathological polyploidization and suggested that Mycoplasma Clearance with Antibiotics or regulating mitochondrial dynamics might have the potential for HCC therapy.

Keywords

CP: Cancer; CP: Microbiology; Mycoplasma hyorhinis; antibiotic; cancer polyploidy cells; hepatocellular carcinoma; mitochondria.

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