Can Table Salt Supercharge Your Immune System to Fight Cancer?

The Cancer Research Institute (CRI) is excited to share the latest study from CRI Lloyd J. Old STAR Enrico Lugli, PhD, from Fondazione Humanitas per la Ricerca, Italy. Published in Nature Immunology, the study focuses on how NaCl or table salt can enhance the effectiveness of CD8+ T cells in cancer immunotherapy.

Dr. Lugli is a CRI Lloyd J. Old STAR, he is developing novel strategies to improve the effectiveness of cellular immunotherapies like adoptive T cell transfer and CAR T therapy to treat various types of cancers.

In this study, Dr. Lugli and his team discovered that NaCl or table salt helps promote anti-cancer activity by preventing T cell exhaustion. The team found that adding NaCl to T cell culture supercharged them, increasing their capacity to produce IFN-γ and kill melanoma cancer cells. When NaCl was used in the preparatory phase of T cells before infusion into mouse cancer models, it prevented T cell exhaustion giving a superior anti-tumor immunity in the mice.

Talking about the discovery Dr. Lugli says, “There were already data on the influence of various molecules – such as glucose, potassium, magnesium, and fats – on immune cells’ function and metabolism, and how these metabolites can regulate immunity against cancer. But we knew very little about the role of salt, especially on CD8 T cells.”

Dr. Lugli also studied the mechanism of NaCl action, revealing that the presence of NaCl enhances the consumption of glutamine, an amino acid critical for the transcriptional, epigenetic, and functional reprogramming of activated T cells. Thus, helping develop a more robust T cell-dependent anti-tumor immune response.

Why is this research important?

Tumor cells create an environment that can tire CD8+ T cells (T cell exhaustion), making them less effective in killing cancer cells and challenging the development of successful immunotherapies. Emphasizing the importance of the discovery, Dr. Lugli said, ” Understanding and reversing this state of exhaustion is crucial if we want to achieve effective cancer treatments.”

This study offers an innovative solution to this problem, by reprogramming T cell metabolism with a common ingredient: table salt (NaCl). By boosting T cell energy, this approach could lead to more effective cancer treatments, offering new hope and breakthroughs in our fight against cancer. If clinical studies confirm the results from Dr. Lugli’s study, salt could become an important, accessible, and cost-effective addition to the combination of cytokines and metabolites already in use in the preparation of cellular therapies against cancer.