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Novel cancer therapies presented with donor immune system
If the immune system of our body does not recognize existing dangers, it can not prevent it. So is it possible to fight diseases in our body with the help of a foreign immune system? Researchers have now found out that if immune cells fail to recognize cancer cells through their own immune system, foreign immune cells can do it.
If our own body fails to recognize and counteract health hazards, foreign immune cells may be able to take on this important role. Scientists from the Netherlands Cancer Institute and University Medical Center in Oslo have now found in an investigation that adding mutant DNA from cancer cells to immune cells from healthy donors, the affected person's cells produce an immune response. The experts published the results of their study in the journal "Sciene".
If our body can not recognize cancer cells, it will not be able to fight them. Researchers have now developed a method to enable the detection of cancer cells with the help of a foreign immune system. (Image: psdesign1 / fotolia.com) New treatment method allows the immune system to recognize cancer
A pilot study has now shown that immune cells can not recognize foreign immune cells that are able to protect themselves from the disease, the authors explain. The researchers added mutant DNA from cancer cells to immune cells of cancer patients. These in turn then generated an immune response. The scientist succeeded in repatriating the target structures from the donor cells into the immune cells of the patients suffering from cancer. Through this process, the body's immune system was again able to recognize the cancer cells, say the doctors.
Oncological immunotherapy is making great progress
Oncological immunotherapy is currently developing very fast. This type of therapy aims, with the help of newly developed technologies, to support the body's immune system in the fight against cancer, explain the scientists. There are many reasons why our immune system is unable to recognize and fight cancer cells. For the first time, the activity of our immune cells is controlled by various stop mechanisms, the experts say. These can also disturb the functions of our immune cells. There are already other studies in which therapies are being tested that aim to shut off these stop mechanisms. However, there are also cases in which the cancer cells in some patients are initially not recognized by the immune system as foreign or harmful, the authors explain. For these reasons, the main goal of so-called oncological immunotherapy is the development of new strategies for better identification of cancer cells. If our immune system recognizes cancer cells better, it can fight them much more effectively, the researchers add.
Detecting dangers from a borrowed immune system
The new investigation by the Dutch Cancer Institute tried to determine whether it is possible to use a kind of borrowed immune system in a cancerous body, the scientists explain. Of course, there was the possibility that our own body would recognize the new immune system as foreign. In our body, so-called T-cells are responsible for the recognition of foreign cells. These T cells scan the surface of other cells. So they try to determine whether represent themselves on these surfaces foreign protein fragments, say the medical profession. If fragments of cells were recognized as foreign, they could then be destroyed by the T cells. Cancer cells are defective proteins, they can also express foreign proteins. These proteins, called neoantigens, are then recognized as foreign to the body. The situation is very similar for virus-infected cells expressing viral proteins via their surface receptors, the authors add.
Foreign T cells recognize a significant number of neoantigens
The researchers first identified all candidate neoantigens on the surface of melanoma cells from three different subjects. The physicians then tried to find out if the T cells reacted to all foreign protein fragments of the cancer cells. The scientists were able to determine that the cancer cells of all three patients released many different neoantigens. The T cells of the three patients failed to recognize them as foreign, the researchers say. So the experts began to test whether the same neo-antigens can be recognized by T-cells from healthy donors. And indeed, a significant number of neoantigens could be recognized by the foreign donor T cells, which are normally not found by the patient's immune system, the experts add.
New method clearly enhances the immune response of cancer patients
The results of our study clearly show that it is possible to enhance the immune response of cancer patients. Of course, there are other qualities that make us recognize cancer cells as foreign, say the authors. New research will certainly deal with these properties in the future. The researchers are thinking of a way to identify a special donor per cancer patient that fits perfectly with the neo-antigens. For this, physicians could use the receptor as a template, which is used by the donor T-cells. With this it is then possible to genetically modify the T cells of the patient. As a result, they could then recognize harmful cancer cells again, says author Ton Schumacher of the Dutch Cancer Institute.
Cancer-specific immunity from the blood of healthy donors is transferable
The study found that it is really possible to outsource our immune system to a donor, say the scientists. Of course, much more research and work is needed to help patients benefit from this discovery. The physicians are looking for new ways to increase the so-called flow rate. For this reason, the researchers are currently developing new methods with high flow rates for the identification of neoantigens on cancer cells. After recognition by the T cells, the responding cells were then isolated, the experts explain. The new study makes it clear that we can get cancer-specific immunity from the blood of healthy donors, say the doctors. This is a very promising approach for further research. (As)