Nature: new discovery! The third-order lymphoid structure may help improve the immunotherapeutic response and survival rate of patients with melanoma

January 18, 2020 / BIOON / -- recently, a research report published in the international journal Nature entitled "tertiary lympheid structures improve immunology and survival in melanoma" shows that scientists from Lund University and other institutions in Sweden have found that tertiary lympheid structures may help improve melanoma through research Immunotherapy and patient survival Photo source: Wikipedia can effectively prolong the survival period of patients with advanced cancer by reactivating checkpoint blocking therapy of tumor related T cells or inducing the body's continuous control of tumor, which is currently a biomarker for predicting patients' response to therapy Including high level of tumor immune activity, high burden of tumor mutation and the specificity of intestinal flora Although scientists have elucidated the key role of T cells in anti-tumor immune response through a large number of studies in recent years, the key role of other immune cells is not clear to researchers In this study, the researchers studied the clinical samples of patients with metastatic melanoma, and analyzed the key role of B cells in the anti-tumor immune response The researchers found that the co-occurrence of tumor-related CD8 + T cells and CD20 + B cells was directly related to improving the survival rate of patients, and this result was not dependent on other clinical variables Melanoma is still an increasingly serious challenge to the global medical and health system Now malignant melanoma grows at an annual rate of 3% - 5%, which has become the fastest growing malignant tumor in the world According to the data of CDC in the United States, more than 90% of melanoma is caused by the damage of skin cells caused by exposure to sunlight or other ultraviolet light In this paper, the researchers combined CXCR5, CXCL13 and CD20 for fluorescence staining and found that these CD8 + CD20 + tumors formed a three-stage lymphoid structure After in-depth study, the researchers revealed the gene markers related to the third-order lymphoid tissue structure, which can help predict the clinical results of patients receiving immunocheckpoint blocking therapy In addition, b-cell-rich tumors are accompanied by increased levels of tcf7 + primitive T cells or memory T cells, as confirmed by the analysis of digital spatial profile data They say that in tumors without tertiary lymphoid structure, T cells have a sub phenotype of dysfunction The results of this study show that the third-order lymphoid structure may play a key role in the tumor microenvironment of melanoma by giving different T cell phenotypes Later researchers are expected to develop a therapeutic strategy to induce the formation of the third-order lymphoid structure based on the results of this study, so as to improve the treatment response of melanoma patients to cancer immunotherapy Original sources: cabrita, R., lauss, M., Sanna, A et al Terry lymphoid structures improve immunity and survival in Mexico Nature (2020) doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1914-8