Immunity found that immune cells can protect frequent sites where cancer spreads

In the evolving field of immunotherapy, it is surprising that little is known about the immunity of tumor metastasis sites such as lymph nodes, which are the frequent sites where cancer initially spreads

To solve this problem, researchers in the laboratory of Dr.

Although T cells can freely enter the blood from the lymph nodes and return to the lymph nodes, the Turk laboratory researchers have discovered a new type of anti-tumor T cells that do not circulate, but reside in the lymph nodes to provide protection for melanoma

These long-lived T cells, called "lymph node-resident memory T cells," have been shown to inhibit the spread of melanoma in mice

Turk said: "We also found T cells with similar characteristics in the lymph nodes of patients invaded by melanoma, which suggests that similar populations exist in humans

Computational analysis of melanoma specimen data by Cancer Genome Atlas shows that the presence of T cells with this genetic feature predicts a better prognosis and survival rate for human melanoma patients with lymph node metastasis

Although the concept of T cells residing in lymph nodes is not entirely new, it has never appeared in cancer

The Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center team, including clinicians, medicine, and researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, led by computational biologist Dr.

Other collaborators in this work include the University of Michigan and the University of Texas at San Antonio

In the next year, the Turk research team hopes to better understand how these memory T cells are most efficiently generated and activated in the lymph nodes

Original search:

DOI

10.

Resident memory T cells in regional lymph nodes mediate immunity to metastatic melanoma