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. 2022 Mar 4:13:846469.
doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2022.846469. eCollection 2022.

Malassezia in Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Accomplice of Evoking Tumorigenesis

Qiyu Yang  1 , Jing Ouyang  2 , Damao Pi  3 , Li Feng  4 , Jiadan Yang  3
Affiliations

Malassezia in Inflammatory Bowel Disease: Accomplice of Evoking Tumorigenesis

Qiyu Yang et al. Front Immunol. .

Abstract

Accumulating evidence indicates that patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) have a significantly higher risk of developing different cancers, while the exact mechanism involved is not yet fully understood. Malassezia is a lipid-dependent opportunistic yeast, which colonizes on mammalian skin and internal organs. Also, dysbiosis in fungal communities accompanied by high level of Malassezia are fairly common in inflammatory diseases such as IBD and various cancers. In cancer patients, higher levels of Malassezia are associated with worse prognosis. Once it is ablated in tumor-bearing mice, their prognostic conditions will be improved. Moreover, Malassezia manifests multiple proinflammatory biological properties, such as destruction of epithelial barrier, enrichment of inflammatory factors, and degradation of extracellular matrix (ECM), all of which have been reported to contribute to tumor initiation and malignant progression. Based on these facts, we hypothesize that high levels of Malassezia together with mycobiome dysbiosis in patients with IBD, would aggravate the microecological imbalance, worsen the inflammatory response, and further promote tumorigenesis and deterioration. Herein, we will discuss the detrimental properties of Malassezia and explore the key role of this fungus in the correlation between IBD and cancer, in order to take early surveillance and intervention to minimize the cancer risk in individuals with IBD.

Keywords: Malassezia; cancer; fungus; inflammation; inflammatory bowel disease.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowcharts representing the association of Malassezia, IBD, inflammation, and cancer. IBD, inflammatory bowel disease; ECM, extracellular matrix.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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