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What dictates tumour cell sensitivity to exercise?

Nature Reviews Immunology volume 24, page 303 (2024)Cite this article

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With great interest, we have read the Perspective article by Fiuza-Luces et al.1 on exercise-induced anticancer immunity. The authors highlighted a well-known theory that exercise-induced immunosurveillance — with a prominent role for natural killer (NK) cells — may underpin the anticancer effects of physical activity in humans. It is worth stressing that although epidemiological evidence suggests that physical activity reduces the risk of a cancer diagnosis and cancer mortality, this differs between cancer types2,3. Also, earlier disease stages may be less susceptible than later stages — for example, a higher physical activity level reduces the risk of prostate cancer mortality3, but not a prostate cancer diagnosis2.

Preclinical studies indicate that both natural killer (NK) cells and T cells are integral to the anticancer effects of exercise1,4, and a likely reason for the variable efficacy of physical activity may lie in the fact that cancer clones differ in their sensitivity to immune effector cells such as CD8+ T cells and NK cells. For example, physical activity is largely ineffective in reducing the risk of human cancers that are known to have a low tumour mutational burden2,4,5 and therefore low tumour neoantigen presentation6.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department for Health, University of Bath, Bath, UK

    John P. Campbell

  2. School of Medical and Health Science, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, Australia

    John P. Campbell

  3. Division of Performance and Health (Sports Medicine), Institute for Sport and Sport Science, TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany

    David Walzik & Philipp Zimmer

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  1. John P. Campbell
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  2. David Walzik
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Correspondence to Philipp Zimmer.

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Campbell, J.P., Walzik, D. & Zimmer, P. What dictates tumour cell sensitivity to exercise?. Nat Rev Immunol 24, 303 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41577-024-01001-z

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