Metabolic activity of gut bacteria can either promote or inhibit function of CAR T cells in cancer therapy

Immunotherapies, especially CAR T-cell therapy, have fundamentally changed cancer treatment in recent years, particularly for certain forms of leukemia and lymphoma. Yet not all tumors respond equally well, and the reasons for this remain incompletely understood. A new multicenter study by the Leibniz Institute for Immunotherapy collaboration group, Innate Immune Sensing in Cancer and Transplantation, now shows that it is not only the composition of the gut microbiota that determines the success of CAR T-cell therapy, but above all its metabolic products.

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