Natural Colorectal Cancer Protection Mechanism Decrypts How the immune system protects us from tumors

Protective mechanism discovered: How the immune system protects against colon cancer

Again and again it is pointed out how important it is to strengthen its defenses. A healthy immune system can ward off pathogens and protect against disease. It can even protect against the most serious diseases such as colon cancer.

One of the most common causes of cancer death

According to health experts, colorectal cancer is one of the most common causes of cancer death in Germany. However, many diseases could be prevented if more people regularly go to the check-up. The colonoscopy is particularly important when it comes to colon cancer cases in the family. In addition, the risk of colorectal cancer can be reduced by a healthy lifestyle. Also important is the innate immune system.

Researchers have discovered how the innate immune system protects the body against colon cancer. (Image: Alex / fotolia.com)

Immune system not only ensures the defense against pathogens

Researchers at the Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin have discovered a protective mechanism with which the body preserves its intestinal stem cells from tumors to degenerate.

According to a communication from the clinic, the innate immune system plays a key role.

These findings make it clear that the immune system ensures the healthy functioning of the body far beyond the mere defense against pathogens.

The study was published in the journal "Nature".

Changes in the genome of the cells

As stated in the communication, two worlds meet in the intestine: The body's own cells of the intestinal wall on the one hand and foreign body material, such as bacteria or food and their degradation products, on the other.

Both worlds - body and body alien - are in direct contact and constantly exchange information.

This is important to the body: Many of the environmental factors, such as certain bacterial strains or essential nutrients, are useful or even vital to survival.

However, contact with the environment may also have negative consequences for the organism: some foreign substances cause changes in the genetic material of the cells that line the intestinal wall.

If such DNA damage accumulates, especially in the stem cells of the intestinal wall, these can develop into a colon tumor.

Prevent development of colon cancer

So that it does not even come to the tumor formation, a damaged cell can repair its DNA or - if too extensive damage - "altruistic suicide" (the so-called apoptosis) commit.

So far it has been assumed that the stem cell initiates this repair mechanism independently.

But the study under the direction of Prof. Dr. med. Andreas Diefenbach, director of the Charité Institute for Microbiology and Infection Immunology, comes to a different conclusion:

The immune system can further enhance the DNA repair mechanism in the damaged stem cell, thereby preventing the development of colon cancer.

Recognize hereditary environmental factors

Together with other research groups, the team led by Prof. Diefenbach demonstrated in the mouse model that cells of the innate immune system are able to recognize mutagenic environmental factors such as certain glucosinolates in the intestine.

Glucosinolates are constituents of plants that are found, inter alia, in numerous cabbage species. If the immune cells now detect harmful glucosinolates, they send out the messenger Interleukin 22.

This in turn causes the stem cells in the gut wall to detect any damage to their DNA earlier and repair faster.

"So the immune system acts like a sensor for harmful components of food," explains Prof. Diefenbach.

"If we switch off this sensor, we observe a significantly increased number of colorectal cancer cases," said the BIH Professor of Precision Medicine with a focus on microbiome research and head of the working group Mucosal Immunology at the German Rheumatism Research Center Berlin.

Complex interaction should be investigated more closely

For Prof. Diefenbach, these findings not only reveal a hitherto unknown control loop that protects the body against colon cancer. They also point out that the task of the immune system involves much more than the defense against pathogens.

"The immune system monitors rather the healthy growth and function of various organs of the body," says the immunologist.

In the future, he and his team would like to investigate the complex interaction between dietary constituents, intestinal bacteria, the intestinal wall and the immune system in even more detail.

"This could explain the plethora of inflammatory bowel disease," adds the scientist. (Ad)