when you think of fungi and its connection to the body, your first thought might be of mushrooms or moulds — things that exist externally, such as within our environment or on our hair and skin. in fact, there are at least 1.5 million different species of fungi that are quite literally everywhere — outdoors, indoor and even in your food,
according to wonders of biology
.
but scientists have now discovered that fungi also live inside our bodies, including within cancerous tumours. and it’s a discovery that will help with understanding the biology of cancer, diagnosis and treatment,
ctv news reports
.
bioengineering researchers at the university of california san diego school of medicine led an international team of scientists to create the first cancer “mycobiome atlas” from a survey of 35 types of cancer, including breast, colon and lung cancers, and the associated fungi that were discovered in mutations of tumours.
the study, recently published in the journal
cell
, looked at more than 17,000 blood, plasma and tissue samples from cancer patients in various stages of the disease.
while the recent research has found metabolically active, intracellular, and cancer type-specific communities of bacteria and viruses in tumour tissues that have allowed scientists to develop telltale cancer hallmarks, study authors note that new findings show that fungi also play a role in cancer biology and behaviour, with links that have been determined between specific fungi and age, tumour subtypes and the body’s survival mechanisms.
fungi is more complicated than bacteria