Comparative Study on the Esophageal Microflora of Different Tissue Types in Patients With Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Objective: This study aimed to compare the differences in microbiota between the postoperative tissues and esophageal mucosa tissues of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Methods: Seventy-two patients who had ESCC and diagnosed in Taihe Hospital were selected from July 2018 to July 2019 to participate in this work. Then, 27 postoperative tissues and 45 mucosa samples of ESCC were collected. The sequence V 4 hypervariable region was amplified, and Illumina MiSeq sequencing was performed to analyze the differences between the two groups. Results: Results revealed that the Shannon and Chao1 indices of the postoperative esophageal cancer tissue group (Group A) were significantly higher (P0.05). The beta diversity of the two groups was also not significantly different (P>0.05). LEfSe analysis showed that the abundance of Megasphaera, Actinobacteria, Enterobacteriaceae , and Enterobacteriales in Group A was significantly higher than that in Group B, but the abundance of Mogibacteriaceae in Group B was significantly higher than that in Group A (P<0.05). At the phylum level, Actinobacteria and Verrucomicrobiae were more abundant in the postoperative tissue group than in the esophageal mucosa group. The abundance of Fusobacteriia , SR1, and Spirochaetes in the postoperative tissue group was significantly lower than that of the esophageal mucosa group(P<0.05). Conclusion: The source of the sample should be considered in studies on the esophageal flora. More relevant findings were obtained from postoperative tissues than from the normal mucosa.