For many, summer signifies vacations, travel, festivals, and beach days. From a biological standpoint, in North America, summer is the prime season for vitamin D synthesis, as the sun’s angle and UVB exposure duration allow the skin to produce it. This “sunshine vitamin” plays a multitude of roles within the body. Most notably, it is involved in the intestinal absorption of calcium and phosphorus, minerals essential for bone and dental health (1). Low vitamin D levels have been linked to various mood disorders, including depression (2).
Vitamin D is also implicated in immune function (1), inflammation (3) and gut microbiota health (4). A research team from the Francis Crick Institute in London (6) delved deeper into the link between vitamin D and anti-cancer immunity (5). Not only did they demonstrate that vitamin D-enhanced anti-cancer immunity is modulated by the gut microbiota, but they also established that Bacteroides fragilis, whose presence is increased by higher vitamin D availability, is responsible for this tumor-growth-limiting immune effect (6). Their findings also suggest that vitamin D levels could influence the efficacy of immune checkpoint-based immunotherapies (6).
These discoveries add to the multiple other biological processes attributed to vitamin D. It is yet another reason to enjoy the sun in the coming weeks to synthesize as much vitamin D as possible. And if you require specific antibodies targeting your cancer targets for your research projects, whether for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes, MediMabs can synthesize and produce them for you (7).