Could Glucose Be Key to Next-Generation Cancer Treatments?

For the body’s disease-fighting T cells, glucose is much more than just a simple sugar rush. The research is detailed in a study published in Cell Metabolism.

Scientists at the Van Andel Institute have uncovered that glucose, a critical fuel source for immune cells, also plays a key role in T cell communication and enhances their tumor-fighting abilities. This insight could help refine how T cells are used to battle cancer and other illnesses.

“Immune cells are highly influenced by their environment,” said Joseph Longo, Ph.D., the study’s first author and a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Russell Jones, Ph.D. “We knew that T cells need access to glucose to function, but we didn’t know exactly why. It was previously thought that T cells mainly break down glucose for energy, but our new work shows that T cells use glucose as a building block for other molecules that are necessary to support T cells’ anti-cancer properties.”

The findings reveal that T cells allocate significant portions of glucose to build large molecules called glycosphingolipids (GSLs). These sugar-fat compounds are essential for T cell growth and making proteins that T cells use to combat cancer.

GSLs help form fat-rich structures on T cell surfaces called lipid rafts, which bring together cell signaling proteins that instruct the T cell to kill cancer cells. Without GSLs, these signals are weaker, making T cells less effective at destroying tumors.

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