Institution: VIB (Center for Cancer Biology). Leuven, Belgium
Team: Laboratory of Tumor Inflammation and Angiogenesis.
PI: Massimiliano Mazzone
Objectives: Metabolic competition within the tumor microenvironment is a key hallmark of cancer progression and it can influence the growth and the survival of both cancer cells and tumor stromal cells. We studied Glutamate dehydrogenase 1 (GLUD1), an enzyme that catalyzes the oxidative deamination of glutamate to α-ketoglutarate, and we demonstrated that upon the inhibition of GLUD1 in macrophages we could observe an increase in glutamine level. In a context of immune checkpoint treatments, the increase in glutamine availability can lead to T cell activation and, thus, boost the immune response. Expected Results: the goal of the project is to reprogram the tumor microenvironment via metabolic editing of cancer cells and/or TAMS in order to improve the efficacy of cancer immunotherapies, both adoptive cell transfer and immune checkpoint inhibition.
As part of our MSCA-ESR training on complementary skills we got to leave the wet lab to explore what happens on the other side of the bench and to learn what it means to be a scientific editor. This is our story.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 766214.
Bellvitge Biomedical
Research Institute (IDIBELL)
Hospital Duran i Reynals, 3a planta
Gran Via de l’Hospitalet, 199
08908 L’Hospitalet del Llobregat
Barcelona, Spain
