PNAS: New molecular markers help determine how cancer patients respond to immunotherapy.

September 9, 2020 //--- For many people with different types of cancer, immunosuppressants can effectively boost their immune systems to fight the development of the disease, but not all patients benefit from these drugs.
Now, a team led by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School (HMS) has developed a way to help identify potential clinical markers that may indicate which patients are responding to immunosuppressants and which patients should be treated with other strategies.
study was published in the journal PNAS.
(Photo: www.pixabay.com) In this study, scientists developed a way to implant breast cancer tumors in mice and treat them with immunosuppressants.
first developed a two-sided tumor model that was removed and reactive, in which we placed a breast tumor on each side of the mouse's breast," he said.
, we remove one tumor to assess the micro-environment of the tumor and monitor the response of another unsealed tumor.
X. Chen, lead author of the study, explained.
using this model system, the researchers found that early in the treatment, the tumor tissue in mice that responded to the treatment contained more cancer-killing "cytotoxic" T-immune cells, as well as fewer immunosuppressive cells.
Gene expression analysis of cytotoxic T-cells in tumors reveals unique genetic characteristics that distinguish between responders and non-responders - specifically, there are T-cell active signals in responsive tumors, rather than T-cell failure signals in responsive tumors.
Importantly, we found that the genetic characteristics of these reactive and non-reactive tumors were significantly associated with reactive and non-reactive genetic characteristics in patients treated with immunotherapy checkpoint inhibitors.
the impact of this study may be beyond the scope of identifying new markers, thus predicting a patient's response to immuno-checkpoint inhibitors.
Study highlights the importance of studying the potential benefits of immunotherapy by studying the dynamic immunomodulation of tumor microenvirons," said co-author Dr. Rakesh Jain, director of the MGH and A.W. Steele laboratories.
we hope to expand this approach to the study and detection of other types of tumors on immunochemical checkpoint inhibitors of drug resistance mechanisms and reactions to biomarkers.
. (bioon.com) Source: Markers may predict patient response to immune therapy of cancer Original source: Ivy X. Chen el al., "A tumor model of contentional programs associated with patient response to immune checkpoint," PNAS (2020).