Cancer eludes, suppresses or subverts the body's immune system to survive and grow. Scientists at M. D. Anderson have found that the helper T cell Th17 awakens the immune system to attack and destroy tumors with custom-made killer T cells. Professor of Immunology Chen Dong, Ph.D., and colleagues report their findings online today in the journal Immunity.
Working with a mouse model of metastatic human melanoma tumors, the researchers show that the absence of Th17 led to virulent growth of melanoma in the lungs, while injecting Th17 cells prevented melanoma development and destroyed existing tumors. Th17 secretes the inflammatory protein interleukin-17 (Il-17), which launches the immune system response.
"While there is much work to be done, these preclinical findings imply the possibility of taking a patient's Th17 cells, expanding them in the lab, and then re-infusing them as treatment," Dong says. Development of a vaccine to stimulate Th17 cells would be another possible application.
Dong is co-discoverer of Th17, one of only four known types of T helper cells that guide adaptive immune system response. His team also established that Th17 produces interleukin-17 and further showed that overexpression of IL-17 causes both autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.
Th17's involvement in autoimmune disease is probably why it's able to recognize and attack cancer, which is also self tissue. "So a key to developing therapy will be to use Th17 cells that only recognize tumor antigens but do not react to normal tissue," Dong says.
Read the full news release
AAI Honors Chen Dong for Breakthrough T Lymphocyte Research
Working with a mouse model of metastatic human melanoma tumors, the researchers show that the absence of Th17 led to virulent growth of melanoma in the lungs, while injecting Th17 cells prevented melanoma development and destroyed existing tumors. Th17 secretes the inflammatory protein interleukin-17 (Il-17), which launches the immune system response.
"While there is much work to be done, these preclinical findings imply the possibility of taking a patient's Th17 cells, expanding them in the lab, and then re-infusing them as treatment," Dong says. Development of a vaccine to stimulate Th17 cells would be another possible application.
Dong is co-discoverer of Th17, one of only four known types of T helper cells that guide adaptive immune system response. His team also established that Th17 produces interleukin-17 and further showed that overexpression of IL-17 causes both autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.
Th17's involvement in autoimmune disease is probably why it's able to recognize and attack cancer, which is also self tissue. "So a key to developing therapy will be to use Th17 cells that only recognize tumor antigens but do not react to normal tissue," Dong says.
Read the full news release
AAI Honors Chen Dong for Breakthrough T Lymphocyte Research
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