Microbiome in Neuroblastoma: A Virgin Island in the World of Onco-Microbiome

The composition of the gut and/or tumor microbiome has been intricately involved in the onset of carcinogenesis, tumor progression, therapy response, and patient outcomes in diverse solid cancers. The microbiome type, composition, and their metabolome have been functionally implicated in the multifarious cellular processes, transformation, proliferation, tumor immune evasion, cellular migration, etc. Despite such compelling evidence on the role of microbiome interactions in cancer, the realization of their role in neuroblastoma (NB), the deadly extracranial tumor in infants is few and fragmentary. This review comprehends the composition, diversity, and significance of microbiota in human health. Further, this review discusses the microbiota composition, their mode of action, and their signaling flow through and cellular processes in diverse cancers including NB. Precisely, this study for the first time has realized the functional relevance and clinical significance of the gut and tumor microbiome for NB. Interestingly, large cohort clinical and preclinical in vivo models of NB realized the following: gut microbiota predicts the risk for NB; postnatal (and or not maternal transmission) microbiome rearrangements; gut microbial effect on NB pathogenesis; tumor-altering gut microbial composition; microbial composition predicts treatment outcomes in NB; prebiotic remedies for stabilizing NB-associated microbial rearrangements; microbial composition in tumor-infiltrating microbiota predicts NB outcomes.