Apprentice cancer immunologist

Shortly after the powerful role that immunotherapies play in the battle against cancer were discovered, we are wowed by new findings almost everyday in the field. It is not surprising that the effect of human immune systems could have on tumors are influenced by many other factors, given the how complex the immune system is. (Cancer types, mutation rates/neoantigen loads of the tumors, gut &microbiota of individuals, tumor intrinsic signatures all count here.) However, I'm surprised when two new studies simultaneously suggested that fasting/ calorie restriction is an influencer of immune surveillance. In the latest issue of Cancer Cell , Di Biase et al. and Pietrocola et al. both showed that mice undergoing calorie-restricted diet had improved tumor control performance compared with those that had normal food. Treating mice with calorie-restriction was even more effective when combined with traditional chemotherapies like mitoxantrone and doxorubicin. The finding stays true...

We've been long aware about the possible harm that high-fat-diet could do for our cardiovascular system. Taking greasy fries out of our meals is a way to help us stay away from heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes, but it may sound unusual to associate it to doing any good to our immune system. Recent studies suggested that high fat diet could cause more severe diseases in autoimmune diseases. The study published in Immunity ( Haghikia and Jo¨rg et al. ) studied the role of two types of fatty acids, short-chain and long-chain fatty acid, on autoimmune diseases. Short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) role are solely metabolized by gut bacteria from otherwise indigestible carbohydrates (e.g. dietary fiber); on the other hand, long-chain FAs (LCFAs) come from regular dietary fat. They kept mice that had neural autoimmune disease (autoimmune encephalomyelitis/EAE) with food enriched with SCFAs, LCFAs or control food to compare disease progression. As a result, mice treated with L...

Continuing the huge trend of discovering more into the magical "immune checkpoint blockade" therapy (as the hottest field that shed hope to cancer treatment), more is to be discussed about them. As is designed to battle against body's own mechanisms that suppress immune cells, those drugs as Ipilimumab and Nivolumab potentiate patients' own immune systems so that they are able to do their jobs and to control tumor growth. Despite the exciting efficacy of these drugs in melanoma, one of the puzzles is the different reponsiveness among patients. Two papers just came out about the topic. While  Ipilimumab (CTLA-4 inhibitor) and Nivolumab (PD-1 inhibitor) were individually discussed in each paper, similar correlation of the responsiveness of immune checkpoint blockade therapy with genomic alteration in melanoma patients were found. High mutation loads tend to correlate with a favorable clinical response of both Ipilimumab and Nivolumab. However as suggested in the S...