The research team led by Professor Dongming Kuang and Associate Professor Yuan Wei from the School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, has made a groundbreaking discovery regarding tumor treatment strategies. Their study systematically revealed for the first time that dietary or therapeutic strategies aiming to "starve" tumors by restricting sugar intake may carry counterproductive risks. Leveraging their research, the team found that low-carbohydrate diets or impaired glucose metabolism in cancer cells could lead to the transfer of TRAIL to the lungs via exosomes, significantly increasing the risk of tumor lung metastasis.

The research further proposed that plasma exosomal TRAIL can serve as a highly efficient biomarker for predicting lung metastasis of liver cancer. This finding provides new insights for early screening, intervention evaluation, and targeted therapy of tumor patients, holding great clinical significance.

The study was published online in Cell on July 15 under the title “Glucose restriction shapes pre-metastatic innate immune landscapes in the lung through exosomal TRAIL.”

Link to the paper: https://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(25)00728-7