{"id":353703,"date":"2026-03-23T10:54:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T10:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/353703\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T10:54:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T10:54:11","slug":"blocking-fructose-may-improve-cancer-therapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/353703\/","title":{"rendered":"Blocking Fructose May Improve Cancer Therapy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered that specialized immune cells within the glioblastoma tumor metabolize fructose to suppress immune responses and promote tumor growth, reports a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The study, the first to identify this sugar pathway as a driver of immune suppression in brain tumors, suggests that blocking fructose metabolism in the specialized cells may improve immunotherapy response and patient outcomes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAcross several mouse models, when we removed the fructose transporter, the tumors simply didn\u2019t grow,\u201d said study senior author Jason Miska<\/a>, assistant professor of neurological surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. \u201cIt was far more dramatic than we anticipated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Glioblastoma is the most common and aggressive primary brain tumor in adults and has maintained a five-year survival rate of less than 7%, according to the National Brain Tumor Society.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of the most treatment-resistant brain tumors in part because of its tumor microenvironment, the mix of cells surrounding the tumor. Those include immunosuppressive myeloid cells, which originate from the bone marrow, and brain-resident microglia, immune cells that normally protect the brain and central nervous system.<\/p>\n

Microglia have been shown to be crucial for the early stages of tumor growth and maintain unique metabolic and immunologic processes in glioblastoma compared to infiltrating myeloid cells. Microglia also express a unique fructose transporter, GLUT5, that enables them to transport and metabolize fructose.<\/p>\n

The role of microglial fructose metabolism in glioblastoma tumor progression, however, has remained poorly understood, according to Miska.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew microglia use this fructose transporter as part of their normal biology, but we did not expect it to be this important for brain tumor growth,\u201d said Miska, who is also a member of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center<\/a> of Northwestern University and the Center for Human Immunobiology<\/a> at Feinberg.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we first saw these results nearly four years ago, it\u2019s what kept us going,\u201d he said. \u201cThe findings were so unexpected that we knew we had to keep digging deeper.\u201d<\/p>\n

Discovering the fructose pathway<\/p>\n

In mouse models of glioblastoma, the scientists used several laboratory techniques – including flow cytometry, which measures different types of cells, and genetic sequencing methods – to analyze microglia, macrophages (immune cells that can enter tumors from the bloodstream) and glioma tumor cells from the tumors and surrounding tissue.<\/p>\n

This analysis not only confirmed that microglia uniquely express GLUT5 but also showed that microglia are the only immune cells in the glioblastoma microenvironment capable of metabolizing fructose.<\/p>\n

The Northwestern scientists also studied tumors in mice genetically engineered without the GLUT5 transporter. These tumors showed a much stronger immune response, including better recognition of tumor cells, increased production of cytokines (signaling molecules that drive inflammation) and rapid multiplication of CD8+ T-cells, the immune system\u2019s main cancer-killing cells.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis not only makes the microglia themselves more inflammatory, but it also causes those T-cells and B-cells that are in the tumor to be more activated and create more inflammatory molecules that we have shown are required for rejection of brain tumors,\u201d said Leah Billingham, a Northwestern postdoctoral fellow in Miska\u2019s laboratory and co-first author of the study.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t just solely the microglia doing something, this is an intricate interaction between the different parts of the immune system and how they are then impacting tumor rejection,\u201d Billingham said.<\/p>\n

Improving cancer treatments<\/p>\n

The findings suggest microglial fructose metabolism is a key regulator of immune suppression in glioblastoma and may be a promising therapeutic target to improve immunotherapy response in patients.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge with glioblastoma is that the standard of care has barely changed in 20 years,\u201d Miska said. \u201cThat\u2019s why identifying an entirely new therapeutic approach like this is so exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miska also noted the unique role of fructose in the brain compared to other organ systems: increased fructose consumption is associated with many inflammatory diseases, including colon cancer and diabetic neuropathy, but in the brain, fructose seems to instead suppress inflammation.<\/p>\n

\u201cFructose consumption is associated with so many bad inflammatory outcomes in patients. What\u2019s interesting here is that in the brain, it seems to be working differently,\u201d Miska said. \u201cIt still helps the brain tumor grow, but now we\u2019re seeing something very different in the brain than we see in the rest of the body.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going forward, Miska said his team aims to identify drugs designed to block cells from absorbing fructose that could then be tested in preclinical trials.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we can get our hands on something that is promising as a fructose transport inhibitor, we will then take it into preclinical stages where we add standard-of-care therapies for brain tumors or immunotherapies and see if we can sensitize them,\u201d Miska said.<\/p>\n

Reference: Billingham LK, DeLay SL, Eshac Y, et al. Microglial fructose metabolism is essential for glioblastoma growth. PNAS.<\/p>\n

\u00a02026;123(12):e2521256123. doi: 10.1073\/pnas.2521256123<\/a><\/p>\n

This article has been republished from the following materials<\/a>. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source. Our press release publishing policy can be accessed here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered that specialized immune cells within the glioblastoma tumor metabolize fructose to suppress immune…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353704,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[163,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-353703","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}