When war breaks out, power plants are attacked first along with military facilities like air defense networks. The same thing happens in the war inside the human body. Cancer cells have been found to hijack mitochondria, the energy plants, from immune cells, the body's defense forces.
A team led by Derick Okwan-Duodu, a professor in the Department of Pathology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, said on the 12th (local time) in the international journal Cell Metabolism that "cancer cells can evade attacks by immune cells by seizing mitochondria and metastasize to lymph nodes where immune cells gather."
◇ Stealing power plants to evade the body's immune response
The immune system is the body's defense force that blocks the growth and spread of cancer cells. But once a tumor settles in the body, it evades this force and spreads to the lymph nodes. In other words, the enemy plants itself squarely in the defense command. The researchers showed in mouse experiments that mitochondria are cancer cells' secret weapon.
Mitochondria are organelles that make energy in the cytoplasm and, unlike the nucleus, have their own DNA. Scientists believe mitochondria were originally independent bacteria that entered animal cells, formed a symbiosis, and evolved into energy organelles. Chloroplasts, the energy organelles in plant cells, are the same.
The team found that cancer cells transplanted into mice steal mitochondria from various immune cells. Mitochondrial transfer occurred at the same rate regardless of whether cancer cells were implanted in lymph nodes or in the skin. Cancer cells, in effect, always seize the enemy's batteries or power plants first.
Cancer cells gained at least two advantages by taking mitochondria. When deprived of their power plants, immune cells such as cytotoxic T cells or natural killer (NK) cells saw their ability to identify and attack enemies sharply decline.
Conversely, the camouflage that helps cancer cells avoid immune cells was strengthened. To prevent collateral damage to normal cells while blocking invaders, the body uses proteins called immune checkpoints as markers. Cancer cells that hijacked mitochondria disguised themselves with PD-L1, an immune checkpoint.
Cancer cells also used the MHC-I (major histocompatibility complex class I) protein. MHC-I normally serves as an information officer that alerts immune cells to the characteristics of cancer cells and induces an attack. Cancer cells that seized mitochondria evaded immune attacks by modulating MHC-I expression.
◇ Disrupting the immune system, not harvesting energy, is the goal
The hijacking of mitochondria by cancer cells was found to be aimed at disrupting communications rather than obtaining energy. Cancer cells that absorbed mitochondria began expressing genes linked to the type I interferon pathway, which transmits immune signals.
Interferon signaling helped cancer cells evade immune cells and supported invasion of lymph nodes. It is akin to eavesdropping on the defense force's communications and using them in reverse. The team found that suppressing interferon genes reduces cancer cells' ability to travel to lymph nodes.
Cancer cells were unconcerned with the original function of mitochondria. Even when the hijacked mitochondria could not produce ATP (adenosine triphosphate), the energy carrier, cancer cells maintained their immune evasion. The researchers said this suggests that mitochondrial energy production is not the decisive factor in cancer cells' assault on lymph nodes.
Minna Roh-Johnson, a professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Utah, said, "This study is intriguing in that prior research largely assumed the role of seized mitochondria was only to supply energy to cancer cells." In 2023, Roh-Johnson released findings in the international journal eLife that transferred mitochondria still promote cancer cell growth even after losing their energy metabolism function.
This is not the first time it has been shown that cancer cells steal mitochondria and metastasize to the corresponding tissues. A joint team from the University of South Alabama and the University of Texas medical schools reported in Nature last year that mitochondria from nerve cells help brain metastasis of cancer.
Scientists believe they can find ways to block cancer metastasis by targeting the mitochondrial hijacking by cancer cells. Cynthia Reinhart-King, a professor of bioengineering at Rice University, said, "This discovery shows that mitochondrial transplantation is a new mechanism that promotes cancer progression," and added, "Multiple labs are studying 'immunoengineering' to modify immune cells to counter cancer cells' immune evasion via mitochondrial theft."
The Stanford team is now identifying features that distinguish mitochondria from various cells and tracking mitochondrial activity inside cancer cells. They believe this could predict the paths of cancer cell metastasis. Okwan-Duodu said, "Mitochria seized by cancer cells may determine where cancer survives and proliferates."
References
Cell Metabolism (2026), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2025.12.014
Nature (2025), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09176-8
eLife (2023), DOI: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.85494