Mar 15 2024University of North Carolina Health Care T cells are often called "assassins" or "killers" because they can orchestrate and carry out missions to hunt down bacteria, viruses, and cancer cells throughout the body. Mighty as they may be, recent research has shown that once T cells infiltrate the environment of a solid tumor, they lose the energy needed to combat the cancer.
Jessica Thaxton, PhD, MsCR, associate professor of cell biology and physiology and co-leader of the Cancer Cell Biology Program at the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center In 2019, Thaxton's lab studied a T cell with optimal antitumor function. In a publication in Cancer Immunology Research, Hurst and Thaxton used a proteomics screen to identify enzymes associated with the optimal antitumor metabolism of these T cells. Through this screen, the two discovered that ACC expression may limit the ability of T cells to make ATP in tumors.
Thaxton's team then used CRISPR Cas9-mediated gene deletion to see what would happen if they "deleted" ACC from the picture. There was a rapid reduction in the amount of lipid storage in T cells, and the team was able to visualize fat relocating to the mitochondria to be used to generate energy.