Ueltschi Spring Undergraduate Research Festival Poster
The Role of Increased Physical Activity on Immune Response in Pancreatic Cancer
“Introduction/Background-
Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a lethal cancer due to the lack of early detection and treatment methods. There is a dire need to develop better therapeutic approaches for PDAC. Immunotherapy has become a promising new treatment strategy for many cancers; however, it has not provided meaningful improvement to survival in PDAC patients due to the complexity of the pancreatic tumor microenvironment. New research suggests that physical activity (PA) increases the number of circulating natural killer (NK) and T cells and improves survival outcomes in certain cancers. Therefore, we hypothesize that PA will alter the immune cell populations in the tumor of a PDAC mouse model, which could allow for improved response to immunotherapy.
Methods-
Splenocytes were isolated from mice that underwent two different PA interventions and were orthotopically injected with PDAC cancer cells. Macrophages, T cells, and myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) were stained and quantified via flow cytometry analysis. In the first intervention, mice were given a high-fat diet (HFD) for nine weeks and then randomly assigned to four groups (no-PA + HFD; PA + HFD; no-PA + control diet (CD); PA + CD) prior to tumor implantation. In the second intervention, mice were placed in either a no-PA or PA intervention prior to tumor injection and combined with saline or gemcitabine treatment.
Results-
The no-PA + CD and PA + CD groups showed no significant differences in the percentage of macrophages, T cells, or MDSCs. There was a slight increasing trend of macrophages and MDSCs in the mice from the PA + HFD group. Moreover, there was a significant increase in the percentage of CD8+ T cells in the PA and gemcitabine group. The no-PA and gemcitabine group showed a decreased trend in the percentage of MDSCs.
Conclusions-
This study shows that the PA and diet interventions examined do not significantly affect the percentage of macrophages, T cells, and MDSCs in the splenocytes of the mice studied; however, PA and gemcitabine treatment combined increased the percentage of CD8+ T cells. Further studies are needed to determine if immunotherapy along with PA and gemcitabine improves PDAC outcomes.”
This study is really interesting and really emphasizes the need for research regarding the immune system as it is often compromised during cancer. So, I think this research is great! Great job!
Thank you so much! I agree, research regarding the immune system in cancer is such an important topic and should really be investigated more.
The hypothesis you started with, that the effects of physical activity could improve the response to immunotherapy, is interesting. I hope further studies support the validity of this hypothesis.
The hypothesis you started with, that the effects of physical activity could improve the response to immunotherapy, is interesting. I hope further studies support the validity of this hypothesis.