Vitamin D regulates intestinal bacteria and improves cancer immunity… Confirmation of mouse experiment

British, American and Danish research team “Patients with high vitamin D levels are more responsive to cancer immunotherapy”

It was confirmed in mouse experiments that vitamin D improves response to cancer immunotherapy by regulating intestinal microorganisms.

Additionally, it has been shown that people with high vitamin D levels are more likely to respond well to cancer immunotherapy.

A joint research team from the Francis Crick Institute in the UK, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the US National Institutes of Health, and Aalborg University in Denmark reported on the 26th in the scientific journal Science that this fact was discovered through an experiment in which mice were fed a diet rich in vitamin D and an analysis of a group of cancer patients. He said he had discovered it.

Dr. Evangelos Giampazolias, first author and co-corresponding author, said that vitamin D has been shown to help improve response to immunotherapy by inducing cancer immunity in mouse intestinal bacteria, which is an immune system using the intestinal microbial community. He said that this suggests the possibility of preventing or treating cancer through strengthening.

The research team pointed out that previous studies had also suggested a link between vitamin D deficiency and cancer risk, but the evidence was not clear.

In this study, the research team fed mice transplanted with tumor cells a diet rich in vitamin D and examined changes in the intestinal microbial community and immunity against cancer.

As a result, mice that ate vitamin D-rich food showed that vitamin D acted on intestinal epithelial cells and the number of microorganisms called Bacteroides fragilis increased, resulting in improved immune resistance and improved response to immunotherapy.

This effect was also seen when gene editing technology was used to remove a protein that binds to vitamin D in the blood and prevents it from entering the tissues.

This suggests that improved immunotherapy response is not a direct effect of vitamin D.

Next, to determine whether the improvement in cancer immunity was the effect of Bacteroides fragilis, this microorganism was administered to mice fed a normal diet. Resistance to tumor growth was improved, but this effect was not observed in mice fed a vitamin D-deficient diet. didn’t show up

Additionally, a research team at Aalborg University in Denmark analyzed data from 1.5 million people and found a link between vitamin D levels and cancer risk, and a separate analysis of a group of cancer patients found that higher vitamin D levels were associated with greater responsiveness to immunotherapy. confirmed.

“These results show that vitamin D helps improve response to cancer immunotherapy,” said Dr. Giampazolias. “An important challenge is to pinpoint the factors that distinguish good microorganisms from bad microbes.”

Co-corresponding author Dr. Caenano Reis et Sosa said, “The results of this study may one day be important in treating cancer, but we still do not know the exact mechanism of action of vitamin D. Correcting vitamin D deficiency is essential for preventing or treating cancer.” “More research is needed to determine if it is helpful,” he said.

◆ Source: Science, Evangelos Giampazolias et al., ‘Vitamin D regulates microbiome-dependent immunity cancer’, http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.adh7954

/yunhap news