Study finds that vitamin D boosts gut health and cancer treatment success in mice, indicating new avenues for enhancing immunotherapy.
A recent study in mice reveals that dietary vitamin D can modulate the gut microbiome, thereby enhancing the response to cancer immunotherapies. This research sheds light on the complex relationship between vitamin D and the immune system’s response to cancer through gut bacteria. It suggests that vitamin D levels could be a key factor in determining the effectiveness of cancer immunity and the success of immunotherapy treatments.
Vitamin D plays an important role in immune modulation as well as shaping the gut microbiome. Studies have also investigated the micronutrient’s role in cancer immunity as it’s been linked to both lower incidence of tumors and decreased mortality for several types of cancers and improved responses to immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) treatments. However, how the activity of vitamin D affects the success of cancer immunotherapy and whether this effect involves the immune system and/or the microbiome remains unclear.
Study Findings and Implications
Through genetic and dietary manipulation in mice, Evangelos Giampazolias and colleagues found that increased vitamin D bioavailability leads to changes in the microbiome in ways that favor Bacteroides fragilis – an anaerobic Gram-negative bacterium found in humans and mice. According to Giampazolias et al., the increase in B. fragilis enhanced immune-mediated resistance to cancer, including resistance to the development of melanomas and improved responses to ICI.
What’s more, the authors discovered that this increased anti-cancer immunity could be transferred to other mice by fecal transplantation. Although Giampazolias et al. demonstrate a link between vitamin D activity and lower cancer incidence in humans, the authors note that longitudinal studies in humans are needed to disentangle the interaction between vitamin D availability and dietary supplementation with the microbiome and immunity to cancer.
Future Research Directions
“The study of Giampazolias et al. highlights the important role of diet in the design of microbial therapies,” write Fabien Franco and Kathy McCoy in a related Perspective. “Future investigations will help delineate how microbes can be harnessed in conjunction with dietary interventions to unleash the full potential of ICI therapy.”
For more on this research, see Unlocking Vitamin D’s Hidden Role in Cancer Immunity.
Reference: “Vitamin D regulates microbiome-dependent cancer immunity” by Evangelos Giampazolias, Mariana Pereira da Costa, Khiem C. Lam, Kok Haw Jonathan Lim, Ana Cardoso, Cécile Piot, Probir Chakravarty, Sonja Blasche, Swara Patel, Adi Biram, Tomas Castro-Dopico, Michael D. Buck, Richard R. Rodrigues, Gry Juul Poulsen, Susana A. Palma-Duran, Neil C. Rogers, Maria A. Koufaki, Carlos M. Minutti, Pengbo Wang, Alexander Vdovin, Bruno Frederico, Eleanor Childs, Sonia Lee, Ben Simpson, Andrea Iseppon, Sara Omenetti, Gavin Kelly, Robert Goldstone, Emma Nye, Alejandro Suárez-Bonnet, Simon L. Priestnall, James I. MacRae, Santiago Zelenay, Kiran Raosaheb Patil, Kevin Litchfield, James C. Lee, Tine Jess, Romina S. Goldszmid and Caetano Reis e Sousa, 25 April 2024, Science.
DOI: 10.1126/science.adh7954
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