Taurine is a sulfur-containing amino acid that is widely found in various tissues of the human body, especially in organs such as the heart, brain and muscles. In recent years, studies have found that taurine plays an important role in tumor development and treatment.
On the one hand, taurine deficiency can lead to tumor immune escape. Immune evasion refers to the survival and proliferation of tumor cells that evade surveillance and attack by the immune system through a variety of mechanisms. Studies have found that taurine can regulate the function of immune cells and enhance anti-tumor immune responses. When taurine levels decrease, the activity of immune cells weakens, and tumor cells are more likely to evade the attack of the immune system, leading to the development and metastasis of tumors.
On the other hand, taurine deficiency can also lead to a recurrence of tumor resistance. Drug-resistant recurrence refers to the gradual resistance of tumor cells to drugs during treatment, resulting in weakened or even ineffective treatment effects. Studies have found that taurine can affect the sensitivity of tumor cells to chemotherapy drugs and immunotherapy drugs. When taurine levels are reduced, tumor cells become less sensitive to these drugs, leading to the development of drug resistance.
Therefore, taurine deficiency may be an important cause of tumor immune escape and drug resistance recurrence, revealing a new mechanism of "dual resistance" of chemotherapy and immunotherapy. In response to this finding, future cancer treatment strategies can focus on increasing taurine levels to enhance anti-tumor immune responses and improve drug sensitivity, thereby improving treatment efficacy. At the same time, monitoring taurine levels may also become an important indicator to evaluate the prognosis and treatment effect of cancer patients.
Drug resistance is a major challenge in the current treatment of gastric cancer
Gastric cancer is a malignant tumor with a high incidence in mainland China, and although chemotherapy, molecular targeted therapy and immunotherapy in recent years have effectively prolonged the survival of gastric cancer patients, drug resistance is still a major challenge in the treatment of gastric cancer. As the molecular mechanism of drug resistance in gastric cancer is not fully understood, there is still a lack of effective prevention and intervention methods.
This study revealed a new mechanism of "dual drug resistance" of chemotherapy and immunotherapy for gastric cancer
This paper deeply analyzed the tumor immune microenvironment of patients before and after drug treatment, and found that taurine deficiency is an important cause of tumor immune escape and drug resistance recurrence, revealing a new mechanism of "double resistance" of chemotherapy and immunotherapy.
The researchers found that the taurine transporter SLC6A6 was highly expressed in drug-resistant tissues of gastric cancer, which is an independent risk factor for the prognosis of patients and can be used as a new marker to predict drug resistance and disease progression of gastric cancer. At the same time, a novel pathway was revealed to promote ATF4 transcription in CD8+ T cells induced by taurine uptake by gastric cancer cells through competitive taurine uptake by SLC6A6, and a new mechanism of ATF4-mediated immune checkpoint expression and exhaustion disability in CD8+ T cells in taurine deficiency state was elucidated.
In addition, the study also reported for the first time that taurine "promotes tumor growth in immunodeficient mice and inhibits tumor growth in immunocompetent mice", and found that taurine supplementation can specifically increase the number of tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T cells and the secretion of anti-tumor cytokines, and proposes a new view that the tumor inhibition effect of taurine depends on its effect on CD8+ T cells rather than direct inhibition of tumor cells.
In addition, the researchers also discovered the regulatory axis of SLC6A6 elevation induced by chemotherapy drugs in gastric cancer cells, which provides a precise mechanistic explanation for the clinical phenomenon of "reduced efficacy of immunotherapy after multiple lines of chemotherapy", and provides a new intervention target for chemotherapy and immunotherapy resistance.
In the future, the team will further promote the clinical translation of scientific discoveries and explore the clinical value of molecules such as SLC6A6 as markers and therapeutic targets for efficacy judgment and recurrence monitoring of gastric cancer. The team has found that the combination of taurine and chemotherapy or immunotherapy drugs can synergistically exert anti-tumor effects, and has initiated two randomized controlled clinical studies in patients with locally advanced gastric cancer and neoadjuvant gastric cancer patients at the National Clinical Research Center for Digestive Diseases of the Air Force Medical University.