Immunometabolism

Immunometabolism is a branch of biology that studies the interplay between metabolism and immunology in all organisms. Immunometabolism first appears in the academic literature in 2011, where it is defined as "an emerging field of investigation at the interface between the historically distinct disciplines of immunology and metabolism."[1] A later article defines immunometabolism as describing "the changes that occur in intracellular metabolic pathways in immune cells during activation".[2] Broadly, immunometabolic research records the physiological functioning of the immune system in the context of different metabolic conditions in health and disease. These studies can cover molecular and cellular aspects of immune system function in vitro, in situ, and in vivo, under different metabolic conditions. For example, highly proliferative cells such as cancer cells and activating T cells undergo metabolic reprogramming, increasing glucose uptake to shift towards aerobic glycolysis during normoxia. While aerobic glycolysis is an inefficient pathway for ATP production in quiescent cells, this so-called “Warburg effect” supports the bioenergetic and biosynthetic needs of rapidly proliferating cells.[3]

Immunometabolism is an area of growing drug discovery research investment[4][5] in numerous areas of medicine, such as for example, in lessening the impact of age-related metabolic dysfunction and obesity on incidence of type 2 diabetes/ cardiovascular disease, cancer,[1][6][7] as well as infectious diseases.[8]