Modified immune cells that ruthlessly kill cancerous tumours may prove a game-changer for people living with late-stage cancer.
McMaster University researchers Ali Ashkar and Sophie Poznanski have uncovered that changing the metabolism of natural killer (NK) immune cells allows these cells to overcome the hostile conditions found inside tumours and destroy advanced ovarian and lung cancer.
In the past decade cancer immunotherapy has achieved tremendous therapeutic effects in patient with blood cancers. However, the immunosuppressive conditions found inside solid tumours, whose aggressive growth starves surrounding healthy tissues of energy, have until now remained a formidable barrier for immune cell therapies.
“In this study, we discovered that the metabolism, or energy “hub”, of NK cells is paralyzed by tumours, causing the NK cells to undergo an energy crisis and lose their tumour killing functions,” said Poznanski, a PhD student.
“With that understanding, we were able to reverse the dysfunction of NK cells by repurposing a pre-existing metabolism drug that restored their energy production,” she added.
Poznanski is lead author of the paper published this week in the journal Cell Metabolism and a Vanier Scholar.
While these findings answered the decades-old question of how it is that NK cells are suppressed by tumours, the study has another major discovery.
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Cell Metabolism. Research Paper:
