{"id":5061,"date":"2026-01-12T08:23:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T08:23:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/?post_type=speaker&#038;p=5061"},"modified":"2026-01-12T09:45:48","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T09:45:48","slug":"chunwan-lu","status":"publish","type":"speaker","link":"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/speaker\/chunwan-lu\/","title":{"rendered":"Chunwan Lu"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Abstract<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Tryptophan (Trp) metabolites have emerged as key regulators of host tumor immunity and cancer patient response to immunotherapy. However, the function of and mechanism underlying Trp in tumor-activated CTLs in the tumor microenvironment are incompletely understood. Using a defined co-culture system of tumor-specific CTLs and cognate antigen-expressing tumor cells, we performed a genome-wide metabolomics screening and observed that Trp level is elevated in the tumor cell-activated CTLs. Parallel genome-wide RNA-Sequencing and ATAC-Sequencing analysis determined that tumor-specific CTLs respond to tumor cells by transcriptionally activating Slc7a5 expression. Pharmacological inhibition of Slc7a5 decreased Trp uptake in tumor-activated CTLs and suppressed CTL lytic activity in killing tumor cells in vitro. Mice with Slc7a5 deficiency only in T cells exhibited diminished level of tumor-infiltrating T cells and increased tumor growth and metastasis. scRNA-sequencing analysis revealed that Slc7a5 deficiency resulted in decreased activation of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) pathway and repressed FasL expression in tumor- infiltrating T cells. Chromatin immunoprecipitation determined that AhR binds to\u00a0<em>Faslg\u00a0<\/em>promoter in tumor-infiltrating T cells. FasL blockade therapy promotes tumor growth and metastasis in tumor-bearing mice. In human cancer patients, AhR expression correlates with FasL expression in tumor-infiltrating T cells. Furthermore, FasL expression is correlated with patient response to pembrolizumab and survival time. Our finding determines that the Slc7a5-Trp metabolic pathway activates AhR to up-regulate FasL expression in tumor-infiltrating T cells to sustain CTL anti-tumor immunity. Targeting CAR-T cells to up-regulate Slc7a5 to maintain T cell proliferation and function therefore could be a promising direction in cancer immunotherapy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":5078,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"schedule":[],"speaker-category":[],"class_list":["post-5061","speaker","type-speaker","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Chunwan Lu - Cognition Conferences<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/speaker\/chunwan-lu\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chunwan Lu - Cognition Conferences\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Abstract Tryptophan (Trp) metabolites have emerged as key regulators of host tumor immunity and cancer patient response to immunotherapy. However, the function of and mechanism underlying Trp in tumor-activated CTLs in the tumor microenvironment are incompletely understood. Using a defined co-culture system of tumor-specific CTLs and cognate antigen-expressing tumor cells, we performed a genome-wide metabolomics [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/speaker\/chunwan-lu\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cognition Conferences\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-01-12T09:45:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Picture-Jacson-Ferreira.pdf-6.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1414\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/speaker\/chunwan-lu\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/speaker\/chunwan-lu\/\",\"name\":\"Chunwan Lu - Cognition Conferences\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/speaker\/chunwan-lu\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/speaker\/chunwan-lu\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Picture-Jacson-Ferreira.pdf-6.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-01-12T08:23:05+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-01-12T09:45:48+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/speaker\/chunwan-lu\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/speaker\/chunwan-lu\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/speaker\/chunwan-lu\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Picture-Jacson-Ferreira.pdf-6.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Picture-Jacson-Ferreira.pdf-6.png\",\"width\":1414,\"height\":2000},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/speaker\/chunwan-lu\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Chunwan Lu\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/\",\"name\":\"Cognition Conferences\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Chunwan Lu - Cognition Conferences","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/cognitionconferences.com\/virology\/speaker\/chunwan-lu\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Chunwan Lu - Cognition Conferences","og_description":"Abstract Tryptophan (Trp) metabolites have emerged as key regulators of host tumor immunity and cancer patient response to immunotherapy. 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