Fueling the Immune System’s Killers
Results could help design more potent cancer immunotherapies
There’s a group of “killers” protecting your body against infections and eliminating potentially cancerous tissues-natural killers, or NK cells, are first responders of the innate immune system.
“There’s a lot of interest right now in NK cells as a potential target of immunotherapy,” says Joseph Sun, an NK cell expert leading studies into the complex physiology of these immune fighters. “The more we can understand what drives these cells, the better we can program them to fight disease.”
Sun and colleagues were interested in NK metabolism, specifically whether these cells rely on aerobic glycolysis to fuel their protective activities, like their T cell counterparts. Insights into how NK cells are powered would help understand the mechanics of how these cells eliminate pathogens and tumors.
The team used an animal model to examine the biology of NK cells in an in vivo setting and found that NK cells go through a spike in aerobic glycolysis about five days before the same surge occurs in T cells.
These findings line up with the theory that NK cells are a critical part of mounting a rapid, early response to infections, insights that can be used towards developing more potent NK cell-based immunotherapies for cancer patients.
