Advances in human microbiome and prostate cancer research

Sep 23, 2026

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Prostate cancer is a highly prevalent malignancy in men, and its metastatic heterogeneity complicates treatment. Microbiota have been implicated in prostate cancer occurrence, progression, and therapy response through mechanisms involving chronic inflammation, immune microenvironment remodeling, and metabolite-driven hormonal and epigenetic regulation. Clinical translation highlights urinary microbiome profiling with metabolomics for diagnosis and gut-flora modulation to support resistance to androgen deprivation therapy. Key obstacles include low-biomass sequencing accuracy, limited causal validation models, and cohort heterogeneity, supporting future multi-omics integration toward personalized, microorganism-targeted strategies.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages6

Reading Time15 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Differences in the microbiome of prostate tissue

Characterization of the microbiome of the healthy prostate gland

TYPE Review PUBLISHED 14 April 2025 DOI 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1576679 OPEN ACCESS EDITED BY Francisco Jose Roig, Universidad San Jorge, Spain REVIEWED BY Elopy Sibanda, National University of Science and Technology, Zimbabwe Antonio Mariotti, Instituto Srio-Libanˆes de Ensino e Pesquisa (IEP), Brazil *CORRESPONDENCE Lei Liu [liulei3113@jlu.edu.cn](liulei3113@jlu.edu.cn)[ ](liulei3113@jlu.edu.cn)Yuping Han [hanyuping1998@jlu.edu.cn](hanyuping1998@jlu.edu.cn) RECEIVED 14 February 2025 ACCEPTED 26 March 2025 PUBLISHED 14 April 2025 CORRECTED 09 June 2025 CITATION Pei X, Liu L and Han Y (2025) Advances in human microbiome and prostate cancer research. Front. Immunol. 16:1576679 . doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1576679 COPYRIGHT © 2025 Pei, Liu and Han. This is an openaccess article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Advances in human microbiome and prostate cancer research Xin Pei 1, Lei Liu 2* and Yuping Han 1* 1 Department of Urology, China-Japan Union Hospital, Jilin University, Changchun, China, 2 Department of Endocrine, China-Japan Union Hospital, Jilin University, Changchun, China Prostate cancer (PCa) is the second most common malignant tumor in men worldwide, and its metastatic and heterogeneous nature makes it signiﬁcantly more difﬁcult to treat. Recent studies have revealed the critical role of microbiota in PCa occurrence, progression, and treatment. Accumulating evidence from 16SrRNA and metagenomic sequencing suggests the presence of speciﬁc microbiota in prostate tissues and macrogenomics techniques: cancerous tissues are enriched with pro-inﬂammatory genera (e.g., Fusobacterium, Propionibacterium acnes), whereas commensal bacteria (e. g., Pseudomonas) are more common in paracancerous tissues. The microbiota drive tumor progression through activation of the NF-kB/STAT3 pathway to induce chronic inﬂammation, modulation of the immune microenvironment (e.g., Treg/Th17 imbalance and M2-type macrophage polarization), and metabolite (e.g., LPS, short-chain fatty acids)–mediated hormonal and epigenetic regulation. In terms of clinical translation, urinary microbiota characterization combined with metabolomics analysis may enhance diagnostic speciﬁcity, while gut ﬂora modulation (e.g., probiotic interventions or fecal transplants) may improve resistance to androgen deprivation therapy. Current challenges include sequencing accuracy of low-biomass samples, limitations of causal mechanism validation models, and large cohort heterogeneity. In the future, it will be necessary to integrate multi-omics technologies to explore the bidirectional regulation of the “gut-prostate axis” and develop personalized therapeutic strategies targeting microorganisms. In this paper, we systematically review the interactions between microbiota and PCa and their clinical potentials to provide a theoretical basis for precision diagnosis and treatment. KEYWORDS prostate cancer, urinary microbiome, gut-prostate axis, tumor microenvironment, microbiome 1 Introduction According to GLOBOCAN data in 2023, prostate cancer (PCa) ranks as the second most common cancer incidence and ﬁfth most common mortality in men worldwide, and is high on the list of urologic tumors (1). Clinical staging includes both limited (early) and metastatic (advanced) PCa, with early stage patients having a high 5-year survival rate, but approximately one-third progressing to castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), leading to a signiﬁcant Frontiers in Immunology 01 [frontiersin.org](frontiersin.org) increase in therapeutic difﬁculty. T

FAQs

How does the microbiome contribute to prostate cancer progression?

Evidence links microbiota to tumor progression by promoting chronic inflammation, activating signaling pathways such as NF-κB/STAT3, and reshaping the immune microenvironment.

Which sequencing approaches are discussed for microbiome studies in prostate cancer?

The review discusses 16S rRNA sequencing and macrogenomics (whole genome sequencing), including how each method characterizes microbial composition and functions.

What clinical applications are proposed for translating microbiome findings?

Urinary microbiota characterization combined with metabolomics may improve diagnostic specificity, while gut-flora modulation such as probiotics or fecal transplants may help improve resistance to androgen deprivation therapy.

Sep 23, 2026

Upload by Jake