This study describes marked differences in the antitumour immune response among mice housed at different temperatures. Healthy mice prefer an ambient temperature of 30–31 °C (known as 'thermoneutrality'), but the standard housing temperature for laboratory mice is 20–26 °C (known as 'subthermoneutrality'), which causes chronic metabolic cold stress. In several mouse tumour models (of transplanted and chemically induced tumours), tumour growth and metastasis were increased in wild-type, but not in immunodeficient, mice that were housed at subthermoneutrality compared with those housed at thermoneutrality. Activated, antigen-specific CD8+ T cells were present at a higher frequency in mice housed in thermoneutral environments and were required for the delay in tumour growth. Also, tumour-bearing mice housed at thermoneutrality had fewer immunosuppressive cells — regulatory T cells and myeloid-derived suppressor cells — than mice housed at subthermoneutrality. Furthermore, tumour-bearing mice preferred a temperature of 38 °C; the authors suggest that the metabolic stress of tumour growth may compound the effects of cold stress on the immune system.
References
Kokolus, K. M. et al. Baseline tumor growth and immune control in laboratory mice are significantly influenced by subthermoneutral housing temperature. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1304291110 (2013)
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Minton, K. Tumour-bearing mice feel the cold. Nat Rev Immunol 14, 7 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nri3595
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nri3595