Species-specific serine metabolism differentially controls natural killer cell functions

Immune cells undergo rapid metabolic reprogramming to fuel effector responses. However, whether the metabolic pathways that supply these functions differ between human and mouse immune cells is poorly understood. Using a comparative metabolomics approach, here we show both conserved and species-distinct metabolite alterations in cytokine-activated primary human and mouse natural killer (NK) cells. Activated human NK cells fail to perform de novo serine synthesis, resulting in broadly impaired effector functions when serine starved ex vivo or during in vivo dietary serine restriction, limiting their antitumour function. In contrast, activated mouse NK cells perform de novo serine synthesis to fuel one-carbon metabolism and proliferation, resulting in increased metabolic flexibility during ex vivo and dietary serine restriction. While NK cells from both species require one-carbon metabolism to proliferate and produce interferon-γ, GCLC-dependent glutathione synthesis tunes cytotoxic versus inflammatory function in human NK cells. Thus, activated NK cell functions display species-specific requirements for serine metabolism, and environmental serine availability dictates activated human NK cell functions. Li et al. characterize overlapping and divergent metabolic requirements of human and murine NK cells in response to activation, with a focus on serine metabolism