{"id":234506,"date":"2026-04-02T18:06:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T23:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/reprogramming-gatekeeper-immune-cell-may-boost-cancer-immunotherapy"},"modified":"2026-04-02T18:06:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T23:06:24","slug":"reprogramming-gatekeeper-immune-cell-may-boost-cancer-immunotherapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/reprogramming-gatekeeper-immune-cell-may-boost-cancer-immunotherapy","title":{"rendered":"Reprogramming \u2018gatekeeper\u2019 immune cell may boost cancer immunotherapy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/reprogramming-gatekeeper-immune-cell-may-boost-cancer-immunotherapy2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital scientists have discovered how tumors disable immune \u201cgatekeeper\u201d cells that alert the rest of the immune system to the presence of cancer\u2014and how restoring their energy production can improve immunotherapy. Dendritic cells activate the cytotoxic immune cells that destroy cancer. The researchers found that tumors reduce dendritic cell function by decreasing their mitochondrial fitness, thus preventing formation of the anticancer immune response.<\/p>\n<p>The results, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/science.adv6582\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Science<\/i>, also show that boosting mitochondrial function in dendritic cells enhances antitumor immune activity and strengthens the efficacy of existing immunotherapies.<\/p>\n<p>Dendritic cells alert and activate tumor-killing immune cells as a critical part of anticancer immune response. However, within the nutrient-sparse tumor microenvironment (the complex mixture of chemicals, cells and other factors near cancer cells), dendritic cells progressively lose their energy-producing mitochondrial activity. That loss drives dendritic cell dysfunction and weakens the body\u2019s immune defenses against cancer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital scientists have discovered how tumors disable immune \u201cgatekeeper\u201d cells that alert the rest of the immune system to the presence of cancer\u2014and how restoring their energy production can improve immunotherapy. Dendritic cells activate the cytotoxic immune cells that destroy cancer. The researchers found that tumors reduce dendritic cell function by [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-chemistry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}