The intrahepatic bacterial metataxonomic signature of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma

Dysbiosis of the gut-liver axis increases the risk of bacterial and metabolite influx into the liver, which may contribute to the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In this study, we compared the microbiomes in HCC tumors and adjacent tissues. We examined the HCC tumors and adjacent tissues from 19 patients diagnosed with HCC. We find that the liver tissues from HCC patients with capsule invasion presented higher alpha diversity at the genus level than those without. The bacterial compositions in liver tissues of HCC patients at stage II differed from those at stage I and Advanced, respectively. Metagenomic profiling revealed that order Actinomycetales was enriched in the HCC patients at advanced stages. Order Lactobacillales, family Veillonellaceae, genera Rhodobacter and Megasphaera are enriched in tumors of HCC patients, whereas genus Pseudochrobactrum is enriched in the adjacent tissues from HCC patients. An increased abundance of class Actinobacteria and order Actinomycetales is observed in the HCC patients with cirrhosis. In contrast, phylum Firmicutes, classes Clostridia and Betaproteobacteria, and order Clostridiales are enriched in those without cirrhosis. The presence of various types of bacterial 16S rRNAs in HCC tumors and adjacent tissues indicates the presence of various bacterial communities therein. Our study provides information about differentially abundant intrahepatic bacteria in patients with HCC. The differences found may support possible diagnostic and personalized therapeutic implications for HCC.