Arginine Boosts Immune Signal That Fights Cancer, Viruses
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- Sohail Tavazoie's lab at Rockefeller University showed that low arginine causes ribosomes to stall while assembling MHC-1 proteins, leaving cells unable to display abnormal or viral proteins to T cells.
- First author Qiushuang Wu found 414 proteins at unusually low levels in arginine-deprived cells, with three HLA genes critical to MHC-1 production among the hardest hit.
- Mice fed arginine-rich diets developed fewer colon tumors and showed milder symptoms from influenza and SARS-CoV-2, and arginine given after flu infection also improved outcomes.
- Across colon cancer, influenza, and SARS-CoV-2 models, arginine was the most depleted amino acid, the researchers reported.
- A moderate dose — roughly equivalent to a couple of over-the-counter tablets — could potentially restore expression of MHC-1-related genes, per the study published in Cell.
- Tavazoie proposes arginine supplementation could be tested in patients on immunotherapies or given preventively to high-risk populations exposed to viral pathogens.
Why it matters: Because arginine is inexpensive, widely available, and depleted across colon cancer, influenza, and SARS-CoV-2, the researchers argue it could be rapidly tested in human trials as an adjunct to existing immunotherapies or a low-cost preventive for vulnerable groups — though all current findings remain in mice and cell cultures, not patients.
