Lipid metabolism reprogramming of CD8⁺ T cell and therapeutic implications in cancer

Effector, memory and exhaustion are three phenotypes of CD8⁺ T cell. In tumor microenvironment (TME), metabolism dysfunction of the three should take the blame for immune escape. Against background of CD8⁺ T cell in normal development, multiple determinants in TME, including nutrition competition, PD-1 signals and other cancer - CD8⁺ T cell interactions, cause metabolism reprograming, including failure in energy metabolism and other abnormal lipid metabolism. Further, incompatibility among metabolism patterns of three phenotypes results in unresponsiveness of immune checkpoint blockade (ICB). Therefore, combination of ICB and drugs aiming at abnormal lipid metabolism provides promising direction to improve cancer therapy. This review focuses on lipid metabolism of CD8⁺ T cell and aims to provide innovative therapy strategy to cure cancer.