[HN Gopher] Scientists are finding fungi in cancerous tumors
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       Scientists are finding fungi in cancerous tumors
        
       Author : gmays
       Score  : 77 points
       Date   : 2022-10-10 16:26 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
        
       | dominotw wrote:
       | Do fungi lurking inside cancers speed their growth? (nature.com)
       | - 82 comments
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33133477
        
       | kkoncevicius wrote:
       | As far as I can gather from reading this - contamination cannot
       | be ruled out.
        
         | dominotw wrote:
         | > Although the researchers developed methods to filter any
         | potential contaminants out of the sequencing data, she would
         | like to see the results replicated using samples taken in a
         | sterile environment.
        
       | solmanac wrote:
       | I'm going to assume they are fighting the tumors and take it as a
       | sign to increase my dosages of reishi and chaga powders.
        
         | black_puppydog wrote:
         | Feed the chaganaut!
        
       | riskcomplex wrote:
       | This isn't terribly surprising since one of the first things a
       | cancerous tumor does (often) is create an "cold" immune
       | environment to evade detection by the hosts immune system. This
       | is why certain infections can actually kill a tumor: no immune
       | system to kill the new pathogen and it ends up destroying the
       | cancerous cells.
        
       | hanniabu wrote:
       | This supports the thesis that cancer can be a byproduct of your
       | microbiome
        
       | mbreese wrote:
       | _> Bhatt tells Nature News that the researchers took most of
       | their samples from databases that didn't aim to minimize fungal
       | contamination during collection. So, she'd like to see if other
       | studies can get the same results with samples taken in a sterile
       | environment. _
       | 
       | For me, this is the real question. I expect for a certain level
       | of bacterial and fungal contamination in sequencing experiments.
       | Hell, I've even seen sequencing reads contaminated by the
       | sequencing facility and not from tissue collection lab.
        
       | hondo77 wrote:
       | Great./s Now the people who told me that drinking baking soda in
       | water would cure my cancer "because cancer is a fungus" are going
       | to go wild over this.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | anthk wrote:
         | Some Spanish "magufo" (think of Alex Jones but without the far
         | right ideology and being a fake practicioner) are like that,
         | search for Pamies in Google/DDG. I'm worried about the reaction
         | from these snake-oil scammers, too.
         | 
         | EDIT: I found an article in English:
         | 
         | https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/10/18/inenglish/15398...
        
       | clumsysmurf wrote:
       | Something similar to this was recently found in the mouth
       | 
       | "Across-kingdom partnership between bacteria and fungi can result
       | in the two joining to form a "superorganism"
       | 
       | ...
       | 
       | They were stickier, more resistant to antimicrobials, and more
       | difficult to remove from teeth than either the bacteria or the
       | fungi alone
       | 
       | ...
       | 
       | What's more, the assemblages unexpectedly sprout "limbs" that
       | propel them to "walk" and "leap" to quickly spread on the tooth
       | surface, despite each microbe on its own being non-motile"
       | 
       | https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/microbes-cause-cavities-can...
        
         | nomel wrote:
         | They also sometimes test delicious:
         | https://asm.org/Articles/2020/June/The-Sourdough-Microbiome
        
         | pazimzadeh wrote:
         | That is really cool. Reminds of this paper:
         | 
         | Swimming bacteria promote dispersal of non-motile
         | staphylococcal species
         | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28398350/
        
         | formerkrogemp wrote:
         | Lycan is also an assemblage of fungi and cyanobacteria or algae
         | if I'm not mistaken..
        
           | cossatot wrote:
           | Lichen are. (Lycan are werewolves I think.)
        
       | _dain_ wrote:
       | I told you people not to turn your back on fungi and you didn't
       | listen. now look what they're doing
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31197031
        
       | macawfish wrote:
       | Are there not also sometimes fungi in non-cancerous human
       | tissues?
        
         | wil421 wrote:
         | There are around 50 fungi in our guts alone[1].
         | 
         | >Mahmoud Ghannoum, Ph.D., an NIH-funded researcher since 1993,
         | who's spent his career studying fungi in the body (there are
         | about 50 different species living in our gut specifically). Dr.
         | Ghannoum is credited with uncovering the significant interplay
         | between bacteria and fungi, which affects the critical balance
         | of the body's microbiome. (Much of this interaction occurs at a
         | digestive plaque wall that Ghannoum discovered with his
         | research team at Case Western Reserve University in 2016.)
         | 
         | [1] https://goop.com/wellness/health/new-in-gut-health-fungis-
         | im...
        
         | jjtheblunt wrote:
         | definitely are (athlete's foot, ringworm, candida, ...)
        
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       (page generated 2022-10-10 23:00 UTC)