Nat commun: new research reveals the mechanism that killer T cells kill harmful cells without being killed by themselves

December 19, 2019 / bioin / - -- a class of immune cells called killer T cells release toxic proteins to kill cancer cells and virus infected cells But scientists don't know how they can avoid being killed by their own lethal effects In a new study, researchers from University College London and the University of Melbourne in Australia found that cytotoxic T cells were protected from any harm by the physical properties of their cell membranes - molecular sequencing and charge This finding may help explain why some tumors are more resistant to recently developed cancer immunotherapies than others The relevant research results were recently published in the Journal of nature communications, with the title of "lipid order and charge protect killer T cells from accidental death" Picture from nature communications, 2019, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-13385-x Professor Bart hoogenboom, co-author of the paper and professor of the London nanotechnology center at University College London, said, "killer T cells free the body from disease by drilling holes in rogue cells and injecting toxic enzymes into them It is worth noting that they can do this many times in a row without hurting themselves We now know what works to prevent these killer T cells from killing themselves every time they kill their target cells " The researchers made their discovery by studying perforin, the protein responsible for drilling holes They found that the amount of perforin attached to the surface of the target cell strongly depended on the sequence and accumulation of lipid molecules in the cell membrane More orderly and tight accumulation of lipid molecules results in less binding of perforin, and when they artificially disrupt the ordering of lipid molecules in killer T cells, these cells become more sensitive to perforin However, they also found that when these killer T cells were exposed to so many perforation proteins that some of them attached to their surfaces, these binding perforation proteins still could not kill these cells, indicating that there must be another layer of protection It has been proved that the negative charge provided by some lipid molecules to the cell surface binds the perforin attached to the cell surface and prevents the perforin from destroying the cell Co lead author Adrian Hodel, who screened and explored many membrane systems in this new study, said, "we have known for a long time that local lipid ordering can change the way cells communicate with each other, but surprisingly, the physical properties of the membrane can also provide such an important protection against the molecular drilling of perforin, which can protect killer T cells from perforin." Jesse Rudd Schmidt, co-author of the paper, focused on the characteristics of killer T cells in the laboratory of ilia voskoboinik, co-author of the paper and associate professor of the University of Melbourne "Our findings help explain how our immune system can efficiently kill troublemakers," he said Now we are also interested in studying whether cancer cells can adopt similar protective strategies to avoid being killed by immune cells, which may explain why different patients have different responses to cancer immunotherapy " (BIOON Com) reference: 1 Jesse A Rudd Schmidt et al Lipid order and charge protect killer T cells from accidental death Nature communications, 2019, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-13385-x 2 What protection killer immune cells from harming themselves? Https://mediaexpress.com/news/2019-11-killer-immune-cells.html