{"id":407429,"date":"2026-01-14T21:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T21:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/407429\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T21:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T21:50:10","slug":"cancer-might-evade-immune-defences-by-stealing-mitochondria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/407429\/","title":{"rendered":"Cancer might evade immune defences by stealing mitochondria"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure__image\" alt=\"A scanning electron micrograph of a pink-coloured single mitochondrion sitting in amongst green coloured cytoplasm\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/d41586-026-00123-9_51933958.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"figure__caption u-sans-serif\">Mitochondria produce energy for the cell, but have a number of other important roles.Credit: Professors P. Motta &amp; T. Naguro\/Science Photo Library<\/p>\n<p>Cancer cells use mitochondria stolen from immune cells to spread and escape detection, according to a study published this week in Cell Metabolism<a href=\"#ref-CR1\" data-track=\"click\" data-action=\"anchor-link\" data-track-label=\"go to reference\" data-track-category=\"references\">1<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists have struggled to fully explain how some <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-025-04149-3\" data-track=\"click\" data-label=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-025-04149-3\" data-track-category=\"body text link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">tumour cells<\/a> can spread to and survive in lymph nodes, which are packed with cells that should be able to kill them.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-024-03636-3\" class=\"u-link-inherit\" data-track=\"click\" data-track-label=\"recommended article\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"recommended__image\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/d41586-026-00123-9_27716622.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"recommended__title u-serif\">A new kind of mitochondrion<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Derick Okwan-Duodu, an immunologist and clinical pathologist at Stanford University in California, looked for answers in the emerging field of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-025-01064-5\" data-track=\"click\" data-label=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/d41586-025-01064-5\" data-track-category=\"body text link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">mitochondrial transfer<\/a>, in which the tiny cellular energy factories known as mitochondria move from one cell to another.<\/p>\n<p>Okwan-Duodu and his colleagues found that cancer cells implanted in mice acquired mitochondria from a variety of immune cells. They did so at equal rates irrespective of whether they were implanted into the lymph node or skin.<\/p>\n<p>Stolen batteries<\/p>\n<p>This mitochondrial theft seemed to have at least two effects that benefited cancer cells. Not only did it weaken the immune cells from which these powerful organelles were stolen, but it also triggered a beneficial molecular pathway in the cancer cells that gained them.<\/p>\n<p>The cancer cells that took up the mitochondria began expressing genes linked to the type I interferon pathway, an immune signalling cascade that might help cells evade the immune system and support lymph-node invasion. Silencing genes associated with this pathway reduced the ability of cancer cells to migrate to lymph nodes in mice, Okwan-Duodu and his colleagues found.<\/p>\n<p>The findings represent \u201can entirely new mechanism by which mitochondrial transfer helps cancer progress\u201d, says Cynthia Reinhart-King, a bioengineer at Rice University in Houston, Texas.<\/p>\n<p>The benefits to cancer cells held up even when the researchers destroyed the stolen mitochondria\u2019s ability to produce the energy-carrying molecule ATP, showing that the organelles\u2019 energy production is not crucial to these effects, Okwan-Duodu says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mitochondria produce energy for the cell, but have a number of other important roles.Credit: Professors P. Motta &amp;&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[687,1159,15083,3625,1160,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-407429","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-cancer","9":"tag-humanities-and-social-sciences","10":"tag-immunology","11":"tag-metabolism","12":"tag-multidisciplinary","13":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}