Editorial: T cell alterations in adipose tissue during obesity, HIV, and cancer

Abstract

This collection of articles is designed to foster understanding of the variety and function of T cells in adipose from different species in different disease states. This work originally developed from the obesity epidemic. As the obesity epidemic grew, initial work recognized that adipose was dysfunctional. Work focused on inflammatory macrophages that increase in adipose during over-nutrition to produce inflammatory cytokines (1–3), which also serve to increase the dysfunction of adipose. However, it was soon realized especially in mouse studies that T cells had an increased role, specifically that obesity was associated with an increase in Th1 and Th17 T cells that make inflammatory cytokines (4–9), which also drive adipose dysfunction (4, 10, 11). Recent studies suggest that obesity in cancer patients may be a major risk factor for acquisition Lauby-Secretan et al. (12) but a positive feature in response to certain therapies for certain tumors Wang et al. (13). Because there is widespread adipose dysfunction in HIV infected people, there was also focus on how and why adipose changed, whether it was in response to antiretroviral therapy or due to infection itself (14, 15). This collection of articles are mainly reviews which cover what is known about T cells in obesity, in cancer, and in HIV.