Analysis of the Gut Microbiome and Dietary Habits in Metastatic Melanoma Patients with a Complete and Sustained Response to Immunotherapy

• Published in: Cancers Vol. 15; no. 11; p. 3052
• Main Authors: Golčić, Marin, Simetić, Luka, Herceg, Davorin, Blažičević, Krešimir, Kenđel Jovanović, Gordana, Dražić, Ivan, Belančić, Andrej, Skočibušić, Nataša, Palčevski, Dora, Rubinić, Igor, Vlahović-Palčevski, Vera, Majnarić, Tea, Dobrila-Dintinjana, Renata, Pleština, Stjepko
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland MDPI AG 04.06.2023; MDPI
• Subjects: Analysis; Antibiotics; Bioflavonoids; Biomarkers; Cancer; Care and treatment; Diet; dietary habits; Energy; Fatty acids; Feces; Flavones; Flavonoids; Food; Genetic testing; Genomes; gut microbiome; Immunotherapy; Intestinal microflora; Ipilimumab; Lifestyles; Medical prognosis; Medical research; Medicine, Experimental; Melanoma; Metagenomics; Metastases; Metastasis; Microbiomes; Patients; Probiotics; Proteins; Remission; response time; Taxonomy; Tomography; Virulence; Croatia; United States > US; melanoma; gut microbiome; dietary habits; response time; immunotherapy
• ISSN: 2072-6694; 2072-6694
• DOI: 10.3390/cancers15113052

Immunotherapy has improved the prognosis of metastatic melanoma patients, although most patients do not achieve a complete response. While specific gut microbiome and dietary habits might influence treatment success, there is a lack of concordance between the studies, potentially due to dichotomizing patients only into responders and non-responders. The aim of this study was to elucidate whether metastatic melanoma patients with complete and sustained response to immunotherapy exhibit differences in gut microbiome composition among themselves, and whether those differences were associated with specific dietary habits. Shotgun metagenomic sequencing revealed that patients who exhibited a complete response after more than 9 months of treatment (late responders) exhibited a significantly higher beta-diversity ( = 0.02), with a higher abundance of (LDA 3.548, = 0.010), (LDA 3.392, = 0.024), and lower abundance of ( = 0.04) compared to early responders. Furthermore, late responders exhibited a different diet profile, with a significantly lower intake of proteins and sweets and a higher intake of flavones ( < 0.05). The research showed that metastatic melanoma patients with a complete and sustained response to immunotherapy were a heterogeneous group. Patients with a late complete response exhibited microbiome and dietary habits which were previously associated with an improved response to immunotherapy.