Abstract 3055: Field cancerization and microbiome in lung cancer

Abstract Lung Cancer carcinogenesis is the outcome of a field of premalignant changes that occur in the bronchial tree leading to the overt emergence of the malignant lung cancer. We sought to study the proteome of the microbiome associated with the premalignant bronchial mucosa epithelia. The overall goal is the identify functional relationships between the bronchial mucosa microbiome and the risk of developing lung cancer. We evaluated the proteome of the microbiome using mass spectrometry and specialized microbiome authentication software. This method was applied to a case-control study of plasma samples donors of physician health study who donated plasma at different times prior to the onset of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer. We also examined bronchial mucosa tissue samples near to, and distant from, the tumor harvested from surgical lobectomy specimens. Highly significant protein biomarker differences were found in the plasma and in the tissue samples that were blindly associated with cancer. These included specific proteins from the mucosal microbiome that may have functional role in the carcinogenic process. These key diagnostic risk markers were shared between the premalignant bronchial mucosa tissue and the plasma, supporting the concept that risk markers of bronchial mucosa lung cancer carcinogenesis can be detected in the peripheral circulation. Citation Format: Rayan I. Alhammad, Ngoc B. Vuong, Weidong Zhou, Claudius Mueller, Donald J Johann Jr, Amith R. Katta, Monique V. Hoek, Fahad M. Alsaab, Alessandra Luchini, Lance Liotta. Field cancerization and microbiome in lung cancer [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2022; 2022 Apr 8-13. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2022;82(12_Suppl):Abstract nr 3055.