A recent study has shown that obesity and ageing induce T cell dysfunction and an upregulation of programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) on T cells across species, which is partially mediated by leptin. However, the polarization of T cells towards an exhaustive phenotype correlated with improved response rates to anti-PD-1 therapy in the setting of obesity.
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Lysaght, J. The ‘obesity paradox’ in action with cancer immunotherapy. Nat Rev Endocrinol 15, 132–133 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41574-019-0161-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41574-019-0161-2
