ABSTRACT
Regardless of the global progress in early diagnosis and novel therapeutic regimens, breast carcinoma poses a devastating threat, and the advances are somewhat marred by high mortality rates. Breast cancer risk prediction models based on the known risk factors are extremely useful, but a large number of breast cancers develop in women with no/low known risk. The gut microbiome exerts a profound impact on the host health and physiology and has emerged as a pivotal frontier in breast cancer pathogenesis. Progress in metagenomic analysis has enabled the identification of specific changes in the host microbial signature. In this review, we discuss the microbial and metabolomic changes associated with breast cancer initiation and metastatic progression. We summarize the bidirectional impact of various breast cancer-related therapies on gut microbiota and vice-versa. Finally, we discuss the strategies to modulate the gut microbiota toward a more favorable state that confers anticancer effects.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Author Contributions
Deeptashree Nandi: Investigation, Data Curation, Writing-Original Draft Preparation; Sheetal Parida: Investigation, Data Curation, Writing-Original Draft Preparation; Dipali Sharma: Investigation, Conceptualization, Analysis, Supervision, Writing: Reviewing and Editing.
Data availability statement
It is a review article.