PNAS discovers a new mechanism and uses imaging technology to develop new sting-activating drugs

A new study by scientists at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA has found that emerging drugs that activate the protein STING (a well-established regulator of immune cell activation) substantially alter the metabolism responsible for the building blocks of DNA nucleotides.

Understanding how STING agonists affect metabolic processes can help accelerate the clinical development of STING-activated drugs in various therapeutic settings, and guide the design of new biomarkers and combination therapies

background

The activation of the protein STING has become a promising strategy for cancer immunotherapy, and the ability of a variety of STING activating drugs to stimulate the anti-cancer immune response is currently being studied

method

The UCLA team used and integrated RNAseq transcriptomics and mass spectrometry metabolomics to systematically identify the metabolic changes caused by interferon (the key downstream effector of STING activation) in pancreatic cancer cells

Influence

This study provides evidence that STING activating drugs have a very strong effect on the activity of the metabolic pathways of pancreatic cancer cells

author

The senior author is Dr.

Magazine

The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.

Article title

STING-driven interferon signaling triggers metabolic alterations in pancreas cancer cells visualized by [18F]FLT PET imaging