Original story from Northwestern University (IL, USA). Immune cells in glioblastoma use fructose to evade immune response, pointing to a new treatment target. Northwestern Medicine (IL, USA) scientists have discovered that specialized immune cells within the glioblastoma tumor metabolize fructose to suppress immune responses and promote tumor growth, reports a study published on March 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study, the first to identify this sugar pathway as a driver of immune suppression in brain tumors, suggests that blocking fructose metabolism in the specialized cells may improve immunotherapy response and patient outcomes. “Across several mouse models, when we removed the fructose transporter, the tumors simply didn’t grow,” explained study senior author Jason Miska, assistant professor of neurological surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine (IL, USA). “It was far more dramatic than we anticipated.” Glioblastoma is the most common and aggressive primary brain tumor in adults and has maintained a 5-year survival rate of less than 7%, according to the National Brain Tumor Society (MA, USA). It’s one of the most treatment-resistant brain tumors in part because of its tumor microenvironment, the mix of cells surrounding the tumor. Those include immunosuppressive myeloid cells, which originate from the bone marrow, and brain-resident microglia, immune cells that normally protect the brain and central nervous system. Microglia have been shown to be crucial for the early stages of tumor growth and maintain unique metabolic and immunologic processes in glioblastoma compared to infiltrating myeloid cells. Microglia also…
