Intratumor Mycoplasma promotes the initiation and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma

Abstract

The carcinogenesis and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are closely related to viral infection and intestinal bacteria. However, little is known about bacteria within the HCC tumor microenvironment. Here, we showed that intratumoral Mycoplasma hyorhinis (M. hyorhinis) promoted the initiation and progression of HCC by enhancing nuclear ploidy. We quantified M. hyorhinis in clinical tissue specimens of HCC and observed that patients with high M. hyorhinis load had poor prognosis. We found that gastrointestinal M. hyorhinis can retrogradely infect the liver through the oral-duodenal-hepatopancreatic ampulla route. We further found that the increases in mononuclear polyploidy and cancer stemness resulted from mitochondrial fission caused by intracellular M. hyorhinis. Mechanistically, M. hyorhinis infection promoted the decay of mitochondrial fusion protein (MFN) 1 mRNA in an m6A-dependent manner. Our findings indicated that M. hyorhinis infection promoted pathological polyploidization and suggested that Mycoplasma clearance with antibiotics or regulating mitochondrial dynamics might have the potential for HCC therapy.