ArticleFrontiers in immunology2023
Fatty acids are crucial to fuel NK cells upon acute retrovirus infection.
Article in Frontiers in immunology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Plasma membrane order maps functional diversity in immune cells.Nature chemical biology · 2026Article
- Macrophages tune NK cell IFNγ production through direct lipid transfer.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Extracellular Metabolites and Natural Killer Cell Antitumor Function: Mechanisms and Therapeutic Strategies.Research (Washington, D.C.) · 2026Review
- Glutaminase activity maintains NK cell cytotoxicity through metabolic regulation of effector function.Journal of inflammation (London, England) · 2025Article
- Dietary lipid overload creates a suppressive environment that impedes the antiviral functions of NK cells.iScience · 2025Article
- Targeting metabolic dysfunction of CD8 T cells and natural killer cells in cancer.Nature reviews. Drug discovery · 2025Review
- Natural killer loops: pyruvate in, lactate out.Nature metabolism · 2025Article
- CD36 as a Therapeutic Target in Tumor Microenvironment and Lipid Metabolism.Anti-cancer agents in medicinal chemistry · 2025Review
- Fatty acid oxidation in immune function.Frontiers in immunology · 2024Review
- Iron improves the antiviral activity of NK cells.Frontiers in immunology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Natural killer (NK) cells are cytotoxic innate immune cells, able to recognize and eliminate virus-infected as well as cancer cells. Metabolic reprogramming is crucial for their activity as they have enhanced energy and nutritional demands for their functions during an infection. Fatty acids (FAs) represent an important source of cellular energy and are essential for proliferation of immune cells. However, the precise role of FAs for NK cells activity in retrovirus infection was unknown. Here we show that activated NK cells increase the expression of the FA uptake receptor CD36 and subsequently the uptake of FAs upon acute virus infection. We found an enhanced flexibility of NK cells to utilize FAs as source of energy compare to naïve NK cells. NK cells that were able to generate energy from FAs showed an augmented target cell killing and increased expression of cytotoxic parameters. However, NK cells that were unable to generate energy from FAs exhibited a severely decreased migratory capacity. Our results demonstrate that NK cells require FAs in order to fight acute virus infection. Susceptibility to severe virus infections as it is shown for people with malnutrition may be augmented by defects in the FA processing machinery, which might be a target to therapeutically boost NK cell functions in the future.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.