《自然》杂志：牛羊肉中营养素可提高癌症治疗效果

The study shows that patients with higher levels of TVA circulating in the blood responded better to immunotherapy, suggesting that it could have potential as a nutritional supplement to complement clinical treatments for cancer.

immunotherapy  [ɪ'mjəno'θɛrəpi] n. 免疫疗法

“有许多研究试图解密饮食与人类健康之间的联系，但由于人们吃的食物种类繁多，要理解其背后的机制非常困难。但如果我们只关注食物中的营养物质和代谢产物，我们就开始看到它们是如何影响生理和病理的”，芝加哥大学医学院珍妮特·戴维森·罗利杰出服务教授、本研究论文的主要作者陈靖博士说。

"There are many studies trying to decipher the link between diet and human health, and it's very difficult to understand the underlying mechanisms because of the wide variety of foods people eat. But if we focus on just the nutrients and metabolites derived from food, we begin to see how they influence physiology and pathology," said Jing Chen, Ph.D., the Janet Davison Rowley Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine at UChicago and one of the senior authors of the study.

metabolite [mɛ'tæbəlaɪt] n. 代谢物‍

"By focusing on nutrients that can activate T cell responses, we found one that actually enhances anti-tumor immunity by activating an important immune pathway."

Chen's lab focuses on understanding how metabolites, nutrients and other molecules circulating in the blood influence the development of cancer and response to cancer treatments.

图源：新华

For the new study, two postdoctoral fellows, Hao Fan, Ph.D. and Siyuan Xia, Ph.D., both co-first authors, started with a database of around 700 known metabolites that come from food and assembled a "blood nutrient" compound library consisting of 235 bioactive molecules derived from nutrients.

bioactive [ˌbaɪoˈæktɪv] adj. 对活质起作用的,生物活性的

研究人员筛选了这个新化合物库中的化合物，以了解它们通过激活CD8+T细胞来影响抗肿瘤免疫的能力，CD8+T细胞是对杀死癌变或病毒感染的细胞至关重要的免疫细胞。

They screened the compounds in this new library for their ability to influence anti-tumor immunity by activating CD8+ T cells, a group of immune cells critical for killing cancerous or virally-infected cells.

After the scientists evaluated the top six candidates in both human and mouse cells, they saw that TVA performed the best. TVA is the most abundant trans fatty acid present in human milk, but the body cannot produce it on its own. Only about 20% of TVA is broken down into other byproducts, leaving 80% circulating in the blood. "That means there must be something else it does, so we started working on it more," Chen said.

 byproducts [ˈbaɪˌprɑdʌkt] n. 副产品

The researchers then conducted a series of experiments with cells and mouse models of diverse tumor types. Feeding mice a diet enriched with TVA significantly reduced the tumor growth potential of melanoma and colon cancer cells compared to mice fed a control diet. The TVA diet also enhanced the ability of CD8+ T cells to infiltrate tumors.

melanoma [ˌmɛlə'nomə] n. 黑素瘤；胎记瘤

The team also performed a series of molecular and genetic analyses to understand how TVA was affecting the T cells. These included a new technique for monitoring transcription of single-stranded DNA called kethoxal-assisted single-stranded DNA sequencing, or KAS-seq, developed by Chuan He, Ph.D., the John T. Wilson Distinguished Service Professor of Chemistry at UChicago and another senior author of the study.

These additional assays, done by both the Chen and He labs, showed that TVA inactivates a receptor on the cell surface called GPR43 which is usually activated by short-chain fatty acids often produced by gut microbiota. TVA overpowers these short-chain fatty acids and activates a cellular signaling process known as the CREB pathway, which is involved in a variety of functions including cellular growth, survival, and differentiation.

microbiota [ˌmaikrəubai'əutə] n. 小型生物群，微生物区

The team also showed that mouse models where the GPR43 receptor was exclusively removed from CD8+ T cells also lacked their improved tumor fighting ability.

Finally, the team also worked with Justin Kline, MD, Professor of Medicine at UChicago, to analyze blood samples taken from patients undergoing CAR-T cell immunotherapy treatment for lymphoma.

lymphoma [lɪm'fomə] n. 淋巴瘤

They saw that patients with higher levels of TVA tended to respond to treatment better than those with lower levels. They also tested cell lines from leukemia by working with Wendy Stock, MD, the Anjuli Seth Nayak Professor of Medicine, and saw that TVA enhanced the ability of an immunotherapy drug to kill leukemia cells.

leukemia [lʊ'kimɪə] n. 白血病

来源：medicalxperss‍‍‍‍‍‍

编辑：董静