Imagine your immune system could fight off cancer just like it fights off a cold or a flu. Some scientists are working hard to find ways to shift the immune system into a higher gear to stop cancer, using those little pathogen killers called T cells.
“One of the biggest revolutions in cancer treatment right now are new drugs aimed at stimulating and rejuvenating our T cell response against cancer. This is what we now call the fourth pillar of cancer treatment, what we refer to as immunotherapy,” said Sue Kaech, an immunobiologist and a professor at the Salk Institute.
Kaech said a cancer tumor is a tough neighborhood for T cells. One that can really wear them out. But what if you could make those T cells stronger?
Kaech and her research team have found in tests of animal models that T cells retain their cancer-killing ability, and the right kind of gene expression, when they consume acetate instead of other nutrients.
“So the key finding of this research is we actually found that the way our genes are turned on or off is dependent on which nutrient the cells are consuming,” Kaech said.
You are what you eat, she said, especially when you’re a T cell.
The challenge is to get T cells to choose acetate as a preferred nutrient. Researchers found you could do this by making sure they had plenty of an enzyme called ACSS2.
This was proven in experiments with mice, whose T cells got much better at fighting tumors and killing cancer cells.
Post doctoral fellow Shixin Ma was the lead author of a paper on the research published in the journal Science. She said in humans this process could help attack and control tumors or stop them before they happen.
“I think this could be not only curative but preventive,” Ma said.
Overexpression of the key enzyme and inducing cell consumption of acetate could be done through genetic engineering. Ma said there may also be some dietary steps people can take to encourage the process.
“So maybe as a standard of care in the long run we can let the people specifically eat certain food and then we can make them more healthier, and control tumors better,” she said.
Vinegar, for instance, has a lot of acetate. But before you start consuming a lot of vinegar, you may want to wait for a few more studies to come out.
