Fat-clogged’ Immune Cells Fail to Fight Tumors

esearchers have gained a new understanding of the link between obesity and cancer. In the presence of excess fat, the immune surveillance system fails due to an obesity-fueled lipid accumulation in natural killer (NK) cells, preventing their cellular metabolism and trafficking. The new findings were published in Nature Immunology.1 More than 1.9 billion adults are either overweight or obese and a growing amount of evidence proposes that numerous cancer types (including liver, kidney, endometrial and pancreatic cancers)2 are more common in overweight or obese people. Cancer risk is increased in those with higher body fat, with up to 49% of certain types attributed to obesity.3 The Link Between Cancer and Obesity Article The Link Between Cancer and Obesity READ MORE Previous findings from the GLOBOCAN project indicate that, in 2012 in the United States, approximately 28,000 new cases of cancer in men and approximately 72,000 in women were associated with being obese or overweight.4 The 2018 study1 investigated the effect of obesity on the cellular metabolism, gene expression, and function of NK cells, and its influence on cancer development. NK cells are cells of the innate immune system that limit the spread of tumors – numerous in vitro models have shown that tumor cells are recognized as ‘targets’ by NK cells.5 These cells destroy their targets by secreting lytic granules containing perforin and apoptosis-inducing granzymes. NK cells require a greater amount of energy to support their anti-tumor activity, therefore they switch their metabolic activity from oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) to glycolysis to meet the increased demand for ATP.1 https://www.technologynetworks.com/cancer-research/news/obesity-and-cancer-fat-clogged-immune-cells-fail-to-fight-tumors-311744?utm_campaign=Newsletter_TN_BreakingScienceNews&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=67453675&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9X-Pke7lj8Ekj6-jDhqyw-iDi6w5BQe0vrAV2pOwByG1nCwS6o4r8anDb8dBnqOON6TnDn9w6bk6mv-x-S-7XFley8iA&_hsmi=67453675