Abstract
Immune cell function is tightly regulated by cellular metabolism, which in turn is strongly linked to the nutrient availability in the microenvironment surrounding the cells. This link is critical for effector CD8+ T cells which, after activation, must migrate from nutrient-rich environments into nutrient-scarce regions such as the tumor microenvironment. Assessing how nutrient availability modulates the metabolism of effector CD8+ T cells is thus key for understanding how harsh environments may impair their proliferation and effector function. Here, we describe an approach to systematically study the impact of the nutrient microenvironment on the metabolism of effector CD8+ T cells, based on performing stable 13C isotope labeling measurements on in vitro-differentiated murine effector CD8+ T cells.
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Acknowledgments
JFG is supported by an FWO (Fonds voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek–Vlaanderen, Research Foundation–Flanders) Postdoctoral Fellowship. S-MF acknowledges funding from the European Research Council under the ERC Consolidator Grant Agreement no. 771486 – MetaRegulation, Marie Curie – CIG, FWO – Odysseus II, FWO – Research Grants/Projects, Eugène Yourassowsky Schenking, and KU Leuven – Methusalem Co-Funding. We would like to acknowledge http://www.somersault1824.com for image elements used in Fig. 1 (Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
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Fernández-García, J., Fendt, SM. (2019). Assessing the Impact of the Nutrient Microenvironment on the Metabolism of Effector CD8+ T Cells. In: Fendt, SM., Lunt, S. (eds) Metabolic Signaling. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1862. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-8769-6_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-8769-6_14
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