Multifaceted Community Analyses Uncover Novel Bacterial Species in the Colorectal Tumor Niche

Presented By: Martha Zepeda Rivera, PhD
Speaker Biography: Martha Zepeda Rivera received her PhD as an HHMI Gilliams Fellow at Harvard University, where she studied how a specific bacterium (Proteus mirabilis) differentiates genetically “self” from “non-self” cellular neighbors and relays that information to regulate cooperative versus antagonistic behaviors. Following her PhD, she pursued training at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, first as a Washington Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow and currently as a Staff Scientist. Her projects focus on the bacteria within the tumor microenvironment of colorectal cancer tumors. Martha aims to parse out bacterial genetic diversity to identify disease-relevant isolates and apply synthetic microbiology approaches to facilitate mechanistic investigations of the roles of specific bacteria in disease onset, progression, and treatment efficacy.
Webinar: Multifaceted Community Analyses Uncover Novel Bacterial Species in the Colorectal Tumor Niche
Webinar Abstract: The tumor-associated microbiota is an inherent component of the tumor microenvironment across various human cancer types1. Although members of tumor-associated microbiomes can be identified through 16S rRNA analysis, physical access to bacterial isolates facilitates functional and mechanistic studies to determine the role of these bacterial species in cancer initiation, progression, and patient response to treatment. Here, through complimentary application of large-scale culturing techniques and bacterial single-cell whole genome sequencing approaches, we isolated three novel bacterial species across four tumor tissue samples from patients with colorectal cancer, including a novel Fusobacterium species2. Utilizing PacBio Single Molecule Real Time (SMRT) sequencing we obtained complete genomes for all three novel bacterial species, which facilitated comparative genomics to identify the nearest species neighbors and bioinformatic analyses to distinguish genetic factors that are uniquely present in these tumor isolates. These analyses will inform future mechanistic studies to understand the capabilities and roles of these novel bacterial species.
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