Feeding the wrath with myelin

Abstract

Kloosterman and colleagues studied molecular and cellular changes during radiation therapy and disease recurrence across molecular subtypes of glioblastoma. They uncovered a distinct immune-cancer cell metabolic crosstalk during proneural/oligodendrocyte progenitor cell-like to mesenchymal-like transition, wherein macrophages feed on cholesterol-rich myelin debris to provide lipids to mesenchymal tumor cells, thereby fueling glioblastoma growth.

Figure 1.. Macrophage-tumor metabolic crosstalk in mesenchymal glioblastoma.

The schematic represents the model proposed by Kloosterman and colleagues [6], where tumor-associated macrophages phagocytose myelin debris to become “lipid-laden”, acquiring a unique transcriptional state in which lipids are transferred to mesenchymal tumor cells, leadinf to tumor cell proliferation and glioblastoma growth. Complementing this interaction, the high glycolytic state of mesenchymal cancer cells supports the induction of the “lipid laden” state of the macrophages [6].