A Ludwig Cancer Research study has identified a metabolic switch in the immune system's T cells that is essential to the generation of memory T cells-;which confer lasting immunity to previously encountered pathogens-;and a T cell subtype found in tumors that drives anti-tumor responses during immunotherapy.

Led by Ludwig Lausanne’s Ping-Chih Ho and Alessio Bevilacqua and published in the current issue of Science Immunology, the study identifies PPARβ/δ, a master regulator of gene expression, as that essential molecular switch. Ho, Bevilacqua and their colleagues also show that the switch’s dysfunction compromises T cell “memory” of previously encountered viruses as well as the induction of anticancer immune responses in mice.