The microenvironment dictates glyco-immune surveillance via HSF1-mediated metabolism

Altered glucose metabolism is an auspicious feature of solid tumors, but is it an intrinsic property of tumor cells or a metabolic adaptation to the tumor microenvironment? Using normal epithelial cells cultured in a physiological culture medium under conditions that mimic the physical properties of healthy or cancerous tissues, we establish multiomics relationships between the biochemical and physical properties of the microenvironment and its impact on biosynthetic outputs of altered glucose metabolism. We find that microenvironmental properties, such as hyperglycemia, can affect the composition and thickness of the epithelial glycocalyx, in part through the activity of mechanosensitive stress responses associated with Heat Shock Factor 1 (HSF1). Because glycocalyx thickness alters immune surveillance of epithelial-origin tumor cells, we examined the relationship between the HSF1-hyperglycemia axis in human breast tumors and validate it as a druggable vulnerability to license natural killer cell lethality against cancer cells.