Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered that specialized immune cells within the glioblastoma tumor metabolize fructose to suppress immune responses and promote tumor growth, reports a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study, the first to identify this sugar pathway as a driver of immune suppression in brain tumors, suggests that blocking fructose metabolism in the specialized cells may improve immunotherapy response and patient outcomes.

“Across several mouse models, when we removed the fructose transporter, the tumors simply didn’t grow,” said study senior author Jason Miska, assistant professor of neurological surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “It was far more dramatic than we anticipated.”