Characteristics of the urinary microbiota in non muscle invasive bladder cancer patients and healthy people

Dysbiosis in the microbiota of the urinary system could play a role in the pathogenesis of cancer. We aimed to find the bacteria that cause dysbiosis by comparing the tissue and urine samples of bladder cancer patients with the tissue and urine samples of healthy individuals. First voided urine, mid-stream urine, and tissue samples were collected from 12 male patients with nonmuscle invasive bladder cancer and age-matched 12 healthy individuals. Urine and tissue samples were analyzed using the V3-V4 regions of bacterial 16s Ribosomal RNA. The microbiota contents were compared between the bladder and control cancer groups. The study was supported within the scope of TÜBİTAK Project No. 217S075. The bladder cancer group has a much wider variety of microbiota in both tissue and urine samples than the healthy group (p<0.05). Tissue samples of bladder cancer were characterized by a significantly increased abundance of Escherichia Shigella (p<0.001), Staphylococcus (p<0.001), and Delftia (p=0.001), Acinetobacter (p<0.001), Corynebacterium (p<0.001) and Enhydrobacter (p<0.001). On the other hand, urine samples of bladder cancer were characterized by a significant increase in the abundance of Escherichia Shigella (p<0.001), Ureaplasma (p<0.001), Lactobacillus (p=0.005), Stenotrophomonas (p<0.001), Streptococcus (p<0.001), Corynebacterium (p<0.001) and Prevotella (p=0.039). It was found that five of six suspected bacteria that cause dysbiosis in the bladder cancer tissue samples, also cause dysbiosis in the bladder cancer urine samples. To our knowledge, it is the first study conducted with patients with a history of no endourological intervention and therefore no risk of contamination. Microbiota variety and content were different between bladder cancer patients and healthy individuals. These results pave the way for studies to be conducted for new diagnostic and treatment options based on microbiota dysbiosis.