Science: High-fiber diet can improve immunotherapy for patients with melanoma

According to a latest large-scale international collaborative study, when patients with melanoma receive immunotherapy, if their diet is rich in fiber, their immune system is more likely to kill cancer cells and produce a better response to the therapy

The research was led by the University of Texas and the National Institutes of Health and was published in the journal Science on December 23

Melanoma is the fifth most common cancer in the United States

This research focuses on immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy, which revolutionized the treatment of cancers such as melanoma

Andrey Morgun, an associate professor at Oregon State University, said: “ICB has changed the rules of the game for cancer treatment, and the influence of the gut microbiome on the response to treatment has been confirmed in many studies and preclinical models

The human gut microbiome is a complex community consisting of 10 trillion microbial cells, which come from about 1,000 different bacteria

Morgun and his collaborators studied hundreds of melanoma patients this time and analyzed their gut microbiome, eating habits, use of probiotics, disease characteristics, and treatment outcomes

In the human observational cohort, they found that higher dietary fiber intake was associated with no progression of the disease after the patients received immunotherapy; in those patients who consumed a large amount of dietary fiber without using probiotics, they observed the most significant The benefits

Morgun said: "We have found that the use of dietary fiber and probiotics will affect the gut microbiome, which is related to the different outcomes of immune checkpoint therapy

However, Morgun believes that the results of studies in mice support the idea that a high-fiber diet without the use of probiotics has the strongest anti-tumor immunity

To help understand the complexity of the microbiome, Andrey Morgun and Natalia Shulzhenko earlier developed a computer modeling technique called transkingdom network analysis

The model used in this latest study integrates multiple types of "omics" data-metagenomics, metabolomics, lipidomics, proteomics, etc.

Morgun said that cross-border network analysis in mice showed that Ruminococcaceae (Ruminococcaceae), a bacterium, increased with a high-fiber diet, which deserves attention

He believes that a double-blind, randomized dietary intervention study will help determine whether targeted dietary changes after the beginning of ICB treatment can improve the prognosis of patients

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Dietary fiber and probiotics influence the gut microbiome and melanoma immunotherapy response

Science • 23 Dec 2021 • Vol 374, Issue 6575 • pp.