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Global Translational Medicine

REVIEW ARTICLE
Novel applications of manipulating gut

microbiota for alleviating hematological
disorders

Sibusiso Luthuli * and Lulama Luthuli 2
1
1 Department of Hematology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University, Jiangsu
Provincial People’s Hospital, Nanjing, 210029, China
2 Department of Paediatric Surgery, Kalafong Academic Hospital of the University of Pretoria,
Pretoria, 0001, South Africa

Abstract

Investigations toward malignancies involving gut microbiota are still in their infancy,
especially in hematology and oncology. There are approximately 1.2 million new
hematological malignancy cases, resulting in more than 500,000 cases/year in
mortality worldwide. It is through commendable advancements directed toward
anticancer therapy in recent times that have significantly improved the survival rate
among individuals; however, their cytotoxicity or side effects tend to be challenging
for patients to tolerate, attributed to anticancer therapies such as chemotherapy
and/or radiation therapy due to the aggressive nature in terms of their mechanism
of action. Therefore, novel means, or treatments that could present less or non-
toxic modalities are warranted, especially those that decrease unpleasant side
effects. Studies indicate that the human body accommodates roughly 40 trillion
microorganisms, also referred to as the human microbiota, and the abundance of
*Corresponding author: this microbiota is predominantly found in the gastrointestinal tract. The microbiota
Sibusiso Luthuli is associated with various physiological roles, like immunology, digestive functions,
(luthuli.sibusiso@gmail.com)
and neural development. Therefore, the aim of this literature is to summarize current
Citation: Luthuli S, Luthuli L, 2023, innovations (and achievements) in using gut microbiota to alleviate diseases and
Novel applications of manipulating
gut microbiota for alleviating possible directions to explore toward curing malignancies or associated ailments.
hematological disorders. Global In addition, this type of publication seeks to encourage possible directions to be
Transl Med, 2(2): 0389. employed in establishing “possible biomarkers” which could be used in both the
https://doi.org/10.36922/gtm.0389
laboratory and clinical settings; this includes methodologies involving translational
Received: April 3, 2023 medicine through undertakings of improving cancer therapy.
Accepted: June 16, 2023
Published Online: June 30, 2023
Copyright: © 2023 Author(s). Keywords: Chemotherapy; Lymphoma; Leukemia; Myeloma; Microbiota; Hematological
This is an Open Access article malignancies
distributed under the terms of the
Creative Commons Attribution
License, permitting distribution,
and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is 1. Introduction
properly cited.
1.1. An introduction to gut microbiota
Publisher’s Note: AccScience
Publishing remains neutral with The term microbiome applies to a collection of genomes originating from all the
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional microorganisms found in the ecosystem, while microbiota (such as gut microbiota) refers
affiliations. to microorganisms that assemble within a specific location or environment. Therefore,

Volume 2 Issue 2 (2023) 1 https://doi.org/10.36922/gtm.0389