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Interactions between diet and gut microbiota in cancer

Nature Microbiology volume 9, pages 1644–1654 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Dietary patterns and specific dietary components, in concert with the gut microbiota, can jointly shape susceptibility, resistance and therapeutic response to cancer. Which diet–microbial interactions contribute to or mitigate carcinogenesis and how they work are important questions in this growing field. Here we interpret studies of diet–microbial interactions to assess dietary determinants of intestinal colonization by opportunistic and oncogenic bacteria. We explore how diet-induced expansion of specific gut bacteria might drive colonic epithelial tumorigenesis or create immuno-permissive tumour milieus and introduce recent findings that provide insight into these processes. Additionally, we describe available preclinical models that are widely used to study diet, microbiome and cancer interactions. Given the rising clinical interest in dietary modulations in cancer treatment, we highlight promising clinical trials that describe the effects of different dietary alterations on the microbiome and cancer outcomes.

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Fig. 1: Dietary modulation of colonization resistance to opportunistic gut microbes.
Fig. 2: Diet-mediated production of oncomicrobe toxins.
Fig. 3: Synergy between diet-derived metabolites and oncomicrobes.
Fig. 4: Diet–microbial interactions in ISC pathophysiology and tumorigenesis.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by a National Institutes of Health grant (R01CA154426) and the Cancer Research UK Grand Challenges Initiative (C10674/A27140) to W.S.G. We thank all W.S.G. laboratory members for helpful discussions and contributions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

    Geicho Nakatsu, Natalia Andreeva, Meghan H. MacDonald & Wendy S. Garrett

  2. Harvard Chan Microbiome in Public Health Center, Boston, MA, USA

    Geicho Nakatsu, Natalia Andreeva, Meghan H. MacDonald & Wendy S. Garrett

  3. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Wendy S. Garrett

  4. Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Wendy S. Garrett

  5. Department of Medical Oncology, Dana–Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, USA

    Wendy S. Garrett

Authors
  1. Geicho Nakatsu
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  2. Natalia Andreeva
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  3. Meghan H. MacDonald
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  4. Wendy S. Garrett
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Contributions

G.N., N.A. and W.S.G. wrote and edited the paper. M.H.M. generated the figures.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Wendy S. Garrett.

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Competing interests

W.S.G. is on the scientific advisory board of Empress Therapeutics, Freya Biosciences, Seres Therapeutics, Scipher Medicine and Sail Biosciences, all unrelated to this review article. W.S.G.’s laboratory receives funding from Merck and Astellas. The other authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Microbiology thanks Melek Arkan, K. Leigh Greathouse and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Nakatsu, G., Andreeva, N., MacDonald, M.H. et al. Interactions between diet and gut microbiota in cancer. Nat Microbiol 9, 1644–1654 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-024-01736-4

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