The findings of Song and colleagues discerned that cell-free ascites from ovarian cancer patients instigate ER stress and triggers IRE1α/XBP1 signaling in activated T cells from healthy women; tumour-bearing mice model further showed that the IRE1α/XBP1 signaling in T cells impairs its mitochondrial respiration by regulating glutamine transporter, ultimately attenuating their anti-neoplastic efficacy (Song et al., 2018). Here, XBP1 is linked to neoplasm.