Like CD47, CD24 Also Acts as a " Don ' t Eat Me " Signal and is Abused by Cancer Cells

Cancer cells abuse signals used elsewhere in normal mammalian biochemistry to prevent immune cells from destroying other cells, such as CD47. Interfering in these "don't eat me" signals has produced significant gains in the development of effective cancer therapies that can target multiple types of cancer. Here, researchers describe a newly discovered "don't eat me" signal, CD24, that should allow this class of cancer therapy to be expanded to target cancers that have proved resilient to existing implementations. This and related lines of work that lead to more general anti-cancer platforms are one of the reasons why young people today should have little concern over cancer in their old age yet to come. It will be near entirely a controllable condition, treated efficiently with few side effects, by mid-century. Normally, immune cells called macrophages will detect cancer cells, then engulf and devour them. In recent years, researchers have discovered that proteins on the cell surface can tell macrophages not to eat and destroy them. This can be useful to help normal cells keep the immune system from attacking them, but cancer cells use these "don't eat me" signals to hide from the immune system. Researchers had previously shown that the proteins PD-L1, CD47, and the beta-2-microglobulin subunit of the major histocompatibility class 1 complex, are all used by cancer cells to protect themselves from immune cells. Antibodies that block CD47 are in clinical trials. Cance...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs