A gut microbial signature for combination immune checkpoint blockade across cancer types

Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) targeting programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) and cytotoxic T lymphocyte protein 4 (CTLA-4) can induce remarkable, yet unpredictable, responses across a variety of cancers. Studies suggest that there is a relationship between a cancer patient's gut microbiota composition and clinical response to ICB; however, defining microbiome-based biomarkers that generalize across cohorts has been challenging. This may relate to previous efforts quantifying microbiota to species (or higher taxonomic rank) abundances, whereas microbial functions are often strain specific. Here, we performed deep shotgun metagenomic sequencing of baseline fecal samples from a unique, richly annotated phase…

• CR
  Cancer Research Institute
• BS
  Bristol-Myers Squibb
• WT
  Wellcome Trust

  Awards: 206194/Z/17/Z, 220540/Z/20/A, Z/17/Z, 220540, 206194
• AG
  Australian Government
• CR
  Cancer Research UK

  Awards: A25117, C9685/A25117, C20510/A21717
• PM
  Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre
• HI
  Hudson Institute of Medical Research
• TD
  Tour de Cure