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Updated: Apr 25, 2026

Analysis of Human T Cell Activity in an Allogeneic Co-Culture Setting of Pre-Treated Tumor Cells
Published on: March 7, 2025
The Intercellular Metabolic Interplay between Tumor and Immune Cells
Tingting Wang1, Guangwei Liu2, Ruoning Wang3
1Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disease, The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital , Columbus, OH , USA.
Abstract:
Functional and effective immune response requires a metabolic rewiring of immune cells to meet their energetic and anabolic demands. Beyond this, the availability of extracellular and intracellular metabolites may serve as metabolic signals interconnecting with cellular signaling events to influence cellular fate and immunological function. As such, tumor microenvironment represents a dramatic example of metabolic derangement, where the highly metabolic demanding tumor cells may compromise the function of some immune cells by competing nutrients (a form of intercellular competition), meanwhile may support the function of other immune cells by forming a metabolic symbiosis (a form of intercellular collaboration). It has been well known that tumor cells harness immune system through information exchanges that are largely attributed to soluble protein factors and intercellular junctions. In this review, we will discuss recent advance on tumor metabolism and immune metabolism, as well as provide examples of metabolic communications between tumor cells and immune system, which may represent a novel mechanism of conveying tumor-immune privilege.
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