Researchers at Yale University (United States) have developed a treatment approach against tumor growth in several types of cancer that is based on attacking simultaneously various molecules of the tissues adjacent to the tumor, in which it creates a kind of refuge to begin its expansion.
In depth
“Traditional therapies target a molecule in the tumor microenvironment, but the microenvironment is so complex that targeting one thing doesn’t always work“explained the associate professor of genetics and neurosurgery at Yale School of Medicine and lead author of the study, Sidi Chen.
When these therapies don’t workit may be because the targeted molecule does not play an important role in the individual’s tumor or because there is some other molecule that has a similar effect and compensates for the loss of the targeted molecule. It may be further complicated and may be due to a large network of pathways within the tumor microenvironment that They all work to suppress the body’s immune response.
More details
In this sense, the study, published in ‘Nature Biotechnology‘, has focused on figure out how to attack at the same time multiple objectives.
To do this, scientists have used a gene editing molecule called Cas13which targets and degrades RNA. This molecule has the ability to target multiple genes with one molecular package. The researchers identified several genes that can suppress immune responses and developed a Cas13 system that He addressed each of them.
To take into account
When they administered the Cas13 package into tumor microenvironments in mice, they found that it silenced those immune suppression genes, i.e. deactivated or reactivated the immune systemremodeled the microenvironment and enhanced antitumor immune responses. As a result, they managed to reduce tumor growth in four types of cancer: breast cancer, melanoma, pancreatic cancer and colon cancer.
The researchers have specified that will continue with more studies to optimize this approachalthough they have highlighted that it will be a treatment that can be used directly as generalized therapy and that can also be customized to adapt it to each patient.
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