Project description::
Metabolism out of balance – how fats weaken the liver’s immune system Patients with metabolic-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) are at increased risk of developing liver cancer. Katrin Böttcher and her team at the University of Tübingen and the Technical University of Munich have now uncovered a mechanism that helps explain this link: MAIT cells, key immune cells in the liver, lose their ability to fight liver cancer in MASLD. The cause lies in polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), which accumulate in these cells and trigger lipid peroxidation, leading to metabolic exhaustion. Ultimately, MAIT cells die through a process called ferroptosis. When lipid peroxidation is blocked, however, MAIT cells regain their anti-tumor activity. Moreover, a gene signature score derived from these cells correlates with patient outcomes in liver cancer. The findings, published in the Journal of Hepatology, open new therapeutic perspectives by targeting MAIT cell metabolism.
Publication:
Sebastian Deschler, Junika Pohl-Topcu, Lukas Ramsauer, Philippa Meiser, Sophia Erlacher, Robin P. Schenk, H. Carlo Maurer, Peng Shen, Juliane Kager, Joseph Zink, Karyna Pistrenko, Enric Redondo Monte ... Katrin Böttcher; Polyunsaturated fatty acid-induced metabolic exhaustion and ferroptosis impair the anti-tumour function of MAIT cells in MASLD, Journal of Hepatology 2025.
Paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168827825022731?via%3Dihub
Submitting the Paper of the Month:
Else Kröner-Fresenius-Stiftung is using the series “Paper of the Month” to report in an exemplary and hot-off-the-press style on the outstanding work being done by the scientists it supports. We regularly present publications which have recently appeared in especially renowned journals, have emerged from foundation funding and been given appropriate acknowledgment. This is done in the respective categories “Original Paper” and “Review”. In the case of each of these publications, the first author and/or senior author are being funded by the foundation.
We invite all project managers, fellowship recipients and members of graduate study programs to send their work in accordance with the stated criteria as proposal for Paper of the Month to Ms. Anne Asschenfeldt (a.asschenfeldt@ekfs.de).
More Paper of the Month can be found here.
