Disrupt cognition! Studies have found that a stronger immune system may block immune treatment for cancer.

However, a recent article published in Nature Communications upends our understanding that in some types of cancer immunotherapy, some patients with higher immunity respond less.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine found that tumor cells in patients with strong immunity did not present autoantigen mutations at first, and that major tissue compatible complexes (MHCs) failed to transmit signals to the immune system to "clear cancer cells", thus restricting cancer immunotherapy.
Doi:10.1038/s41467-020-17981-0 Cancer cells and the surface of infected cells have special molecular markers to "tell" the immune system that it needs to remove these "bad cells."
these molecular markers are molecules called major tissue compatible complexes (MHCs), which are found mainly on the surface of most cells in the body.
to allow the immune system to detect and eliminate "bad cells," tumor cells carry a large number of mutations that occur frequently in these molecular markers.
, because of the presence of more MHCs, patients with stronger immunity, such as young people and women, have better cancer immunotherapy.
but in actual treatment, this is not the case.
To answer this question, the researchers studied the genome information of nearly 10,000 cancer patients from the National Institutes of Health's Cancer Genome Map, as well as the genome information of 342 patients of other tumor types obtained from the International Cancer Genome Alliance database and published research.
found no difference in MHC function in age or gender.
the researchers speculated that no significant difference in MHC function between sex and age may have been due to differences in the environment.
MHC Performance in Gender and Age Comprehensive Gender and Age Analysis In addition, the researchers found that younger and female patients tended to accumulate more cancer-inducing genetic mutations than older and male cancer patients, and that major tissue compatible complexes (MHCs) were not effective in presenting such mutations to the immune system, making young and female patients less effective in cancer immunotherapy.
researchers speculate that the result may be that patients with stronger immunity have stronger immune systems that remove better-mutated autoantigen cells more thoroughly, leaving behind more tumor cells that perform worse.
means that while the immune system inhibits tumor growth, the malignancy of the tumor gradually strengthens (immune editing), which in turn has a certain boost to tumor development.
The idea is that if tumor cells don't show their own antigen mutations in the first place, then a large number of mutations carried by tumor cells won't appear in the main tissue compatible complex (MHC), and MHC won't be able to "tell" the immune system that it needs to remove "bad cells."
, immunotherapy using checkpoint inhibitor drugs (blocking surface antigens) is "powerless" in this case.
there are more cancer mutations in young and female patients, so there is no one-size-fits-all approach to cancer treatment.
this requires scientists to delve deeper into the interconnected and functioning mechanisms of tumors and the immune system, and then work out the most appropriate treatment for each individual's situation.
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