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Our immune cells can destroy tumors, but sometimes they need a kick in the pants to do the job. A study in mice describes a new way to incite these attacks by injecting an immune-stimulating mixture directly into tumors. The shots trigger the animals' immune system to eliminate not only the injected tumors, but also other tumors in their bodies.
"This is a very important study," says immunologist Keith Knutson of the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, who wasn't connected to the research. "It provides a good pretext for going into humans."
To bring the wrath of the immune system down on tumors, researchers have tried shooting them up with a variety of molecules and viruses. So far, however, almost every candidate they've tested hasn't worked in people.
Hoping to develop a more potent approach, medical oncologist Ron Levy of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, and colleagues used mice to test the cancer-fighting capabilities of some 20 molecules, including several types of antibodies that activate immune cells. The researchers first induced tumors by inserting cancer cells just below the skin at two different locations on the animals' abdomens. After tumors started growing at both sites, the scientists injected the molecules, alone or in combination, into one tumor in each mouse. They then tracked the responses of both tumors.
A pair of molecules—a type of DNA snippet called CpG and an antibody against the immune cell protein OX40—produced the best results. "On their own, they do almost nothing, but the combination is synergistic," Levy says. When the researchers injected the two molecules into mouse tumors, they disappeared in less than 10 days. In less than 20 days, the noninjected tumors had also vanished, the team reports online today in Science Translational Medicine.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/01/injection-helps-immune-system-obliterate-tumors-least-mice
Idit Sagiv-Barfi, et. al. Eradication of spontaneous malignancy by local immunotherapy. Science Translational Medicine. DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aan4488
(Score: 1) by tfried on Monday February 05 2018, @08:04PM (2 children)
And further:
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday February 05 2018, @09:15PM (1 child)
Neither of these two quotes directly touches upon the necessity of activation inside of a tumor.
That a treatment for Tumor A might not be effective against a different type of Tumor B is completely non-germane.
It may just have been a consideration of time (speed of the trial).
As I read it, they were hijacking the tumor to produce more of the antibodies, rather than having to wait for circulation to carry the injected amounts into the tumors from injections outside.
The other thing they didn't test was implanting tumors into animals that had been given these treatments prophylactically.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by tfried on Tuesday February 06 2018, @06:13AM
Again, I was surprised not to find any "injected outside any tumor" control. However:
Um, read that second quote again, in full. a) They injected into an "A20" tumor, and found all A20 tumors to regress, but not the "CT26" ones. b) They injected the same mix into a CT26 tumor, and found all CT26 tumors to regress, but not the A20 ones. Clearly, the difference between these two conditions is not what did they inject, but where did they inject it.