TY - JOUR T1 - Obesity and cancer : the gammadelta T cell link AU - Bank, Ilan Y1 - 2022/// JO - Exploration of Immunology VL - 2 IS - 3 SP - 320 EP - 333 DO - 10.37349/ei.2022.00053 UR - https://www.explorationpub.com/Journals/ei/Article/100353 AB - Obesity has become a worldwide scourge, affecting more than 10% of adults worldwide. While widely recognized to be associated with increased incidence of medical conditions such as diabetes mellitus and atherosclerosis, obesity also accounts for 9% of the cancer burden in some populations. This is due in part to perturbation of protective immune mechanisms involving natural killer cells, macrophages, and neutrophils. Recent studies indicate that γδ T cells play a prominent protective role against cancer, but in some circumstances are detrimental and pro tumorogenic. In this review, the current scientific literature was explored to determine whether and how obesity affects the anti- and pro-tumoral functions of γδ T cells. Considerable perturbations of γδ T cells by obesity were revealed, suggesting that the “obesity-γδ T cell axis” may profoundly impact the increased incidence of cancer in obese individuals and is worthy of further study. ER -