Madrid. Researchers at the Sloan Kettering Institute in the United States have discovered a new immune cell “soldier” that could be a good target for cancer immunotherapy, they report in the journal Nature.
The scientists admitted that this finding may improve the gap between people who respond to treatment and those who do not. The new cells, which the scientists dubbed innate killer T cells, differ markedly from the conventional target of many immunotherapies: cytotoxic T cells.
For one thing, they aren’t exhausted by prolonged activity like cytotoxic T cells do, and they can penetrate deeper into the tissues where the cancer is hiding. “We think these innate killer T cells could be targeted or genetically modified for cancer therapy. They may be better at reaching and killing solid tumors than conventional T cells,” said Ming Li, lead author of the study.
In this new study, they used a variety of techniques, including single-cell analysis and Crispr genome editing, to further characterize the cells. One of the discoveries has been that innate killer T cells do not produce the PD-1 immune checkpoint molecule and, as a consequence, do not appear to be depleted as typical killer T cells are. It is an attractive feature in a potential immune cell therapy.
“The cells also seem to recognize different markers, or antigens, on the cancer cells. While conventional killer Ts recognize specific mutated antigens (called neoantigens), innate-type killers recognize a much broader range of non-mutated (i.e., normal) antigens,” the researchers explained.
Innate killer T cells also do not rely on antigen-presenting cells, such as dendritic cells, to alert them to the presence of dangerous-looking antigens. In this way, they behave more like innate immune cells that are always primed and ready to attack.
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