ArchiveResearchers re-train immune cells to fight disease
Researchers have found a way of re-educating immune cells rendered impotent by cancer so that they may have potential therapeutic benefit instead. Their findings – published online today (Monday 19 May) in the Journal for Experimental Medicine - could have important implications for future tumour therapy.
Immune cells called macrophages can destroy tumour cells by producing inflammatory proteins that are toxic to the tumour. But the environment inside the tumour somehow halts this production, and instead causes the cells to make proteins that promote tumour growth.
Led by Dr Thorsten Hagemann at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, the new study identifies a protein called IKKb in macrophages that drives this pro-tumour switch. This protein normally stimulates protective inflammation. But the study shows that in the context of tumours, IKKb also blocked the activity of a protein that turns on anti-tumour genes.
When researchers inactivated IKKb in macrophages from mouse tumours, the tumour friendly cells went on the attack. They are now studying these cells in cancer patients to determine whether they can be similarly reprogrammed into tumour killers.
In a parallel paper - lead author Dr Toby Lawrence, also at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry - similar results are revealed in blocking the anti-microbial activity of microphages. The two studies; one in cancer, one in infection, highlight a significant common biological mechanism, and illustrate the importance of the kind of cross-discipline research fostered by the collaboration between Drs Lawrence and Hagemann in their respective fields of inflammation biology and oncology.
Dr Lawrence said: "We have identified a protein from cancer cells that blocks the anti-tumour and anti-microbial activity of macrophages, it will be interesting to find out how pathogenic organisms and cancer cells have evolved to hijack this pathway and protect themselves from attack by our immune system, this will give us clues on how to boost immunity in infection as well as cancer."
Source: www.qmul.ac.uk
