The human immune system is extremely complex, which can not only protect us from infectious diseases, but also effectively eliminate pathogenic cells. But when the immune mechanism is weakened or out of control, evil cancer cells will take advantage of it and even make the disease out of control. For a long time, scientists have tried to strengthen the human immune system in various ways to treat cancer. These treatments are collectively called cancer immunotherapy.
In 20 13, American Science magazine selected cancer immunotherapy as the most breakthrough scientific progress of the year. 20 16, 19 On 9 May, a study published in the journal Science by researchers from the Dutch Cancer Institute, the University of Oslo, Norway, and the University Hospital of Oslo successfully made cancer immunotherapy a step forward.
In this study, a research team composed of Ton Schumacher of the Netherlands Cancer Research Center and Johanna Olweus of the University of Oslo and the University Hospital of Oslo assumed that even if cancer patients' own immune cells could not recognize and fight against tumor cells, they might be able to borrow immune cells from healthy donors to fight side by side with cancer.
The research team first added tumor cells with genetic variation to immune cells of healthy donors to activate immune cells. Then some targeted components in the activated immune cells are implanted into the immune cells of cancer patients, so that the immune cells of cancer patients can successfully identify cancer cells.
In the immune system, T cells have the ability to recognize abnormal cells and destroy tumor cells. However, the human immune system cannot effectively kill cancer cells, because cunning cancer cells have developed ways to coexist peacefully with immune cells. Under the condition of human health, T cells can effectively penetrate the protein fragment on the surface of immune cells and distinguish the invading foreign bodies. Although cancer cells also express foreign protein fragments or new antigens on the cell surface, they can escape the recognition and attack of T cells.
In this study, the research team first collected all foreign protein fragments on the surface of tumor cells of three melanoma patients, and then tested the recognition ability of T cells of patients. The experimental results show that although the cancer cells of patients present a large number of different foreign protein fragments, the T cells of patients still cannot successfully identify the abnormal protein fragments of most tumor cells. However, T cells of healthy donors can successfully identify abnormal protein fragments that T cells of many patients cannot.
Through interviews, the research team said that although this research is still in the early stage, there is still a long way to go before it can be used for cancer treatment. However, the experimental results of this study prove that it is reasonable to use healthy donors to outsource cancer immunity. In the future, the research team will devote itself to exploring foreign protein fragments that can be recognized by T cells and more efficient methods to isolate T cells.
References: 1. science.sciencemag/content/352/629 1/ 1337 2。 science daily/Releases/20 16/05/ 1605 19 144556.3 . acsh/news/20 16/05/23/cancer-immunity-can-be-outsourced-using-health-donors/
Image source: 1. mons.wikimedia/wiki/File:NKI-AVL_main_entrance.jpg 2。 en.wikipedia/wiki/T_cell.
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Subject: T cells, immunotherapy, immune cells, gene detection, gene technology, gene variation, new biomedical knowledge, cancer treatment, medical technology.