Original story from Stanford Medicine (CA, USA). Immune cells engineered to sense metabolic by-products secreted by cancer cells ‘follow their noses’ to migrate to and infiltrate solid tumors in mice. A technique that transforms immune cells into cancer-seeking bloodhounds may overcome a roadblock that has hampered immunotherapy for solid tumors, according to a new study by Stanford Medicine (CA, USA) researchers. The approach equips certain types of immune cells with proteins on their surfaces that can recognize by-products of cancer cells’ abnormal metabolism diffusing in the spaces between cells and stimulate the immune cells to migrate toward the tumor. It differs from another common immunotherapy, called CAR-T cell therapy, in that CAR-T cells are engineered to have receptors that recognize a protein tethered to the surface of a cancer cell, rather than small molecules released into the extracellular spaces. Arming CAR-T cells with specific metabolite-sensing receptors markedly increased the therapies’ effectiveness. “We found that when we equip immune cells with receptors that sense metabolites released by cancer cells, they can sense the tumor, migrate toward it, infiltrate it and control tumor growth, which markedly enhances the survival of mice with human breast and ovarian cancers,” noted Livnat Jerby, assistant professor of genetics. Jerby is the senior author of the research, which was published March 23 in Nature Immunology. Postdoctoral scholar Young-Min Kim is the lead author of the study. An innovative therapy has limits CAR-T cell therapy has transformed the treatment of several blood cancers since it was first approved…
