IMR Press / FBL / Volume 27 / Issue 11 / DOI: 10.31083/j.fbl2711305
Open Access Original Research
Preliminary Analysis of the Presence of Bacterial Azurin Coding Gene in CRC Patients and Correlation with the Microbiota Composition
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1 Department of Experimental and Clinical Biomedical Sciences, University of Florence, 50134 Florence, Italy
2 Research Centre for Agriculture and Environment, Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, 50125 Firenze, Italy
3 Institute of Agricultural Biology and Biotechnology, National Research Council, 56124 Pisa, Italy
4 Department of Biology, University of Pisa, 56126 Pisa, Italy
5 Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine, University of Florence, 50134 Florence, Italy
6 Laboratory of Microbial and Molecular Evolution, Department of Biology, University of Florence, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino (Firenze), Italy
*Correspondence: amedeo.amedei@unifi.it (Amedeo Amedei); renato.fani@unifi.it (Renato Fani)
Academic Editor: Ru Chen
Front. Biosci. (Landmark Ed) 2022, 27(11), 305; https://doi.org/10.31083/j.fbl2711305
Submitted: 7 July 2022 | Revised: 1 October 2022 | Accepted: 1 November 2022 | Published: 11 November 2022
Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s). Published by IMR Press.
This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license.
Abstract

Background: Azurin, a bacterial cupredoxin firstly isolated from the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa, is considered a potential alternative therapeutic tool against different types of cancer. Aims: In this work we have explored the relationship possibly existing between azurin and colorectal cancer (CRC), in light of the evidence that microbial imbalance can lead to CRC progression. Methodology/Results: To this aim, the presence of azurin coding gene in the DNA extracted from saliva, stool, and biopsy samples of 10 CRC patients and 10 healthy controls was evaluated by real-time PCR using primers specifically designed to target the azurin coding gene from different bacterial groups. The correlation of the previously obtained microbiota data with real-time PCR results evidenced a “preferential” enrichment of seven bacterial groups in some samples than in others, even though no statistical significance was detected between controls and CRC. The subset of azurin gene-harbouring bacterial groups was representative of the entire community. Conclusions: Despite the lack of statistical significance between healthy and diseased patients, HTS data analysis highlighted a kind of “preferential” enrichment of seven bacterial groups harbouring the azurin gene in some samples than in others.

Keywords
azurin
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
colorectal cancer
real-time PCR
microbiota
Figures
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