Towards Better Cancer Vaccines via Identification of Important Neoantigens and T Cell Populations

Tumor cells have identifying surface markers that the immune system can in principle attack, but vaccination against those surface markers in order to encourage an anti-tumor immune response has been hit and miss. Researchers here dig deeper into the mechanisms that may explain this variability in response, and thus allow a more viable approach to patient-specific cancer vaccines that will more effectively rouse the immune system to target cancerous cells. When cells begin to turn cancerous, they start producing mutated proteins not seen in healthy cells. These cancerous proteins, also called neoantigens, can alert the body's immune system that something has gone wrong, and T cells that recognize those neoantigens start destroying the cancerous cells. Eventually, these T cells experience a phenomenon known as "T cell exhaustion," which occurs when the tumor creates an immunosuppressive environment that disables the T cells, allowing the tumor to grow unchecked. Scientists hope that cancer vaccines could help to rejuvenate those T cells and help them to attack tumors. In recent years, they have worked to develop methods for identifying neoantigens in patient tumors to incorporate into personalized cancer vaccines. Some of these vaccines have shown promise in clinical trials to treat melanoma and non-small cell lung cancer. "These therapies work amazingly in a subset of patients, but the vast majority still don't respond very well. A lot of the research in our l...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs