Prediagnostic Antibody Responses to Fusobacterium nucleatum Proteins Are Not Associated with Risk of Colorectal Cancer in a Large U.S. Consortium

Chun-Han Lo; William J Blot; Lauren R Teras; Kala Visvanathan; Loïc Le Marchand; Christopher A Haiman; Yu Chen; Howard D Sesso; Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller; Lesley F Tinker; Richard M Peek; John D Potter; Timothy L Cover; Anne Zeleniuch-Jacquotte; Sonja I Berndt; Tim Waterboer; Meira Epplein; Julia Butt; Mingyang Song

doi:10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-20-1471

Prediagnostic Antibody Responses to Fusobacterium nucleatum Proteins Are Not Associated with Risk of Colorectal Cancer in a Large U.S. Consortium

Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2021 Jun;30(6):1279-1282. doi: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-20-1471. Epub 2021 Mar 18.

Authors

Chun-Han Lo^{1

2

3}, William J Blot⁴, Lauren R Teras⁵, Kala Visvanathan⁶, Loïc Le Marchand⁷, Christopher A Haiman⁸, Yu Chen⁹, Howard D Sesso^{3

10}, Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller¹¹, Lesley F Tinker¹², Richard M Peek¹³, John D Potter¹⁴, Timothy L Cover¹⁵, Anne Zeleniuch-Jacquotte⁹, Sonja I Berndt¹⁶, Tim Waterboer¹⁷, Meira Epplein¹⁸, Julia Butt^{17

18}, Mingyang Song^{19

2

3

20}

Affiliations

¹ Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
² Division of Gastroenterology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
³ Department of Epidemiology, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts.
⁴ Division of Epidemiology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee.
⁵ Department of Population Science, American Cancer Society, Atlanta, Georgia.
⁶ Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland.
⁷ Population Sciences in the Pacific Program, University of Hawaii Cancer Center, Honolulu, Hawaii.
⁸ University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and University of Southern California Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, Los Angeles, California.
⁹ Department of Population Health, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York.
¹⁰ Division of Preventive Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
¹¹ Department of Epidemiology and Population Health, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York.
¹² Division of Public Health Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington.
¹³ Division of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee.
¹⁴ Centre for Public Health Research, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand.
¹⁵ Department of Medicine and Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Veterans Affairs Tennessee Valley Healthcare System, Nashville, Tennessee.
¹⁶ Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, NCI, NIH, Rockville, Maryland.
¹⁷ Infections and Cancer Epidemiology, German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany.
¹⁸ Cancer Control and Population Sciences Program, Duke Cancer Institute and Department of Population Health Sciences, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.
¹⁹ Clinical and Translational Epidemiology Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts. msong@hsph.harvard.edu.
²⁰ Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts.

Abstract

Background: The association between prediagnostic antibody responses to Fusobacterium nucleatum (F. nucleatum) and subsequent risk of colorectal cancer is not established.

Methods: We conducted a nested case-control study of 8,126 participants in a consortium of 10 prospective cohorts in the United States.

Results: Higher seroprevalence of any F. nucleatum antibody was observed among non-White participants (51.1%) compared with White participants (31.2%). We did not find any statistically significant association between seropositivity to any of the eight F. nucleatum proteins and colorectal cancer risk.

Conclusions: Prediagnostic antibody responses to F. nucleatum proteins were not associated with the risk of colorectal cancer.

Impact: Future studies may consider a more specific detection of the immunoglobulin isotypes or focus on examining F. nucleatum in stool or tissue samples.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Aged
Antibodies, Bacterial / blood*
Antibodies, Bacterial / immunology
Bacterial Proteins / immunology
Case-Control Studies
Colorectal Neoplasms / blood
Colorectal Neoplasms / epidemiology*
Colorectal Neoplasms / immunology
Colorectal Neoplasms / microbiology
Female
Fusobacterium nucleatum / immunology*
Gastrointestinal Microbiome / immunology*
Humans
Male
Middle Aged
Prospective Studies
Risk Assessment / statistics & numerical data
Seroepidemiologic Studies
United States

Substances

Antibodies, Bacterial
Bacterial Proteins

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Substances

Grants and funding