Metabolic competition in tumor microenvironment

Metabolic pathways tightly regulate T cell response in host defense against infection and cancer. Glycolysis plays a key role in effector T cell differentiation and its function. More recent studies have demonstrated that tumor microenvironment forms hypoxia and metabolic disadvantage of immune cells. These environmental attributions impair the effector T cell survival, proliferation and function. Therefore repurposing of metabolic drugs might develop a novel cancer immunotherapy based on the targeting of T cell immunometabolism. In this review, we abridge basis of cancer cell and T cell metabolism and discuss recent advances elucidating "metabolic competition" exerted on tumor-infiltrating T cells that drive their dysfunction in tumor microenvironment.