Two New Papers on Pan-Cancer Mycobiota Profiles in Cell

Hello fun(gi) friends! Did everyone see the two (!) papers published recently in Cell about the mycobiota profiles of tumors? One was from Rob Knight and Ravid Straussman's groups (https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(22)01127-8.pdf) and the other from Iliyan Iliev's group (https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0092-8674%2822%2901173-4).

Both papers are really interesting to read, and it would be great to hear others' thoughts on their methods and approaches to the analysis. To me, it seems like this could be really cool, but there are still many questions about association vs. causation. Is their biological meaning to the fungi present? Or is it more stochastic than the papers imply?

What did you all think about their approaches to decontaminating their signals?

Let's discuss!