We've updated our Privacy Policy to make it clearer how we use your personal data. We use cookies to provide you with a better experience. You can read our Cookie Policy here.

Advertisement

Detect & Destroy: Activating the Immune System Against Cancer

Detect & Destroy: Activating the Immune System Against Cancer content piece image
Listen with
Speechify
0:00
Register for free to listen to this article
Thank you. Listen to this article using the player above.

Want to listen to this article for FREE?

Complete the form below to unlock access to ALL audio articles.

Read time: 1 minute

A new mechanism for activating the immune system against cancer cells allows immune cells to detect and destroy cancer cells better than before, according to a study published this week in the journal Nature.

The study was led by Prof. Nick Haining, of Harvard Medical School, and co-authored by Prof. Erez Levanon, doctoral student Ilana Buchumansky, of the Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences at Bar-Ilan University, and an international team.

The focus of the study is a mechanism that routinely serves the cell by marking human virus-like genes in order to avoid identifying them as viruses. Now, Prof. Levanon, together with the Harvard team, has discovered that when inhibiting this mechanism, the immune system can be harnessed to fight cancer cells in a particularly efficient manner, and most effectively in lung cancer and melanoma.

"We found that if the mechanism is blocked, the immune system is much more sensitive. When the mechanism is deactivated, the immune system becomes much more aggressive against the tumor cells," said Levanon.

In recent years, a new generation of cancer drugs has been developed which blocks proteins that inhibit immune activity against malignant tumors. These drugs have shown remarkable success in several tumor types. This year's Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to James Allison and Tasuku Honjo, who discovered the key genes of this mechanism. Despite this achievement, the current generation of drugs helps only a small number of patients, while most of the drugs fail to cause the immune system to attack the tumor. It is hoped that the new discovery will allow enhanced activity of the immune system to attack cancer cells. A number of companies have already begun research to screen for drugs that will operate on the basis of this discovery.

This article has been republished from materials provided by Bar-Ilan University. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

Reference:  Ishizuka, J., Manguso, R., Cheruiyot, C., Bi, K., Panda, A., & Iracheta-Vellve, A. et al. (2019). Loss of ADAR1 in tumours overcomes resistance to immune checkpoint blockade. Nature. 565: 43–48  http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0768-9