Cited by 897T-cell and B-cell ImmunologyCancer Immunotherapy and BiomarkersImmunotherapy and Immune Responses

Mitochondrial stress induced by continuous stimulation under hypoxia rapidly drives T cell exhaustion

Open access
Scharping, Nicole E., Rivadeneira, Dayana B., Menk, Ashley V., Vignali, Paolo D. A., Ford, B. Rhodes, Rittenhouse, Natalie L., Peralta, Ronal, Wang, Yiyang +4 more·2021·Nature Immunology

Abstract

Cancer and chronic infections induce T cell exhaustion, a hypofunctional fate carrying distinct epigenetic, transcriptomic and metabolic characteristics. However, drivers of exhaustion remain poorly understood. As intratumoral exhausted T cells experience severe hypoxia, we hypothesized that metabolic stress alters their responses to other signals, specifically, persistent antigenic stimulation. In vitro, although CD8+ T cells experiencing continuous stimulation or hypoxia alone differentiated into functional effectors, the combination rapidly drove T cell dysfunction consistent with exhaustion. Continuous stimulation promoted Blimp-1-mediated repression of PGC-1α-dependent mitochondrial reprogramming, rendering cells poorly responsive to hypoxia. Loss of mitochondrial function generated intolerable levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS), sufficient to promote exhausted-like states, in part through phosphatase inhibition and the consequent activity of nuclear factor of activated T cells. Reducing T cell-intrinsic ROS and lowering tumor hypoxia limited T cell exhaustion, synergizing with immunotherapy. Thus, immunologic and metabolic signaling are intrinsically linked: through mitigation of metabolic stress, T cell differentiation can be altered to promote more functional cellular fates.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1038/s41590-020-00834-9

Cites

57 of 57 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Scharping, N. E., Rivadeneira, D. B., Menk, A. V., Vignali, P. D. A., Ford, B. R., Rittenhouse, N. L., Peralta, R., Wang, Y., Wang, Y., DePeaux, K., Poholek, A. C., & Delgoffe, G. M.
Affiliations
  • University of Pittsburgh (US)
  • Tsinghua University (CN)
Corresponding author
Delgoffe, Greg M.
Venue
Nature Immunology
Published
2021-01-04
Volume
22
Issue
2
Pages
205-215
ISSN
  • 1529-2908 (ISSN-L)
  • 1529-2916
OpenAlex
W3119279345
Cited by
897
References
57
Citations by year
2026: 198 · 2025: 202 · 2024: 165 · 2023: 147 · 2022: 122 · 2021: 63
FWCI
46.83
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Nature Immunology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • National Cancer Institute (F99CA222711, F31CA247129, P50CA121973, F30CA247034, K00CA222711, T32CA082084, P50CA097190, P30CA047904)
  • National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (DP2AI136598, R21AI135367, T32AI089443)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Immunology › T-cell and B-cell Immunology
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Oncology › Cancer Immunotherapy and Biomarkers
  • Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Immunology › Immunotherapy and Immune Responses
Keywords
T cell exhaustion, mitochondrial stress, hypoxia, Blimp-1, PGC-1α, mitochondrial reprogramming, reactive oxygen species, NFAT, CD8+ T cells, tumor immunology, immunotherapy, metabolic stress
MeSH terms
Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor Gamma Coactivator 1-alpha, Tumor Hypoxia, Positive Regulatory Domain I-Binding Factor 1, Animals, Energy Metabolism, Female, Humans, Lymphocyte Activation, Male, Melanoma, Experimental, Mice, Inbred C57BL, Mice, Transgenic, Mitochondria, Signal Transduction, Lymphocytes, Tumor-Infiltrating, Reactive Oxygen Species, CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes, Coculture Techniques, Cell Line, Tumor, Mice, HEK293 Cells, Tumor Microenvironment

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review