Résumé
Availability of the nutrient glutamine influences the differentiation of T cells. This Podcast features an interview with Naomi Taylor and Valérie Dardalhon, authors of a Research Article that appears in the 29 September 2015 issue of Science Signaling , about how availability of the nutrient glutamine affects the differentiation of T cells. Upon activation, naïve CD4 + T cells proliferate and differentiate into several distinct subtypes. These subtypes of T cells differ from one another in the cytokines that they secrete, and they have different functions during the immune response. Whereas effector T cells, such as T helper 1 (T H 1) cells, promote the immune response, regulatory T (T reg ) cells restrain T cell responses to ensure that the immune response does not get out of control. Klysz et al . found that extracellular glutamine was important for the differentiation of T H 1 cells, but not for T reg cells. These findings suggest that the reduced availability of glutamine in the tumor microenvironment may suppress the immune response by favoring the production of T regs at the expense of T H 1 cells. Listen to Podcast