Researchers from the University of California-San Francisco (UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SAN FRANCISCO) in America have developed a drug that distinguishes cancer cells, in order for the immune system to recognize and destroy them.
Cancer cells have the ability to evade and limit the human immune system, and this treatment may help defeat these cells.
The researchers published their study in the journal Cell Cancer.
New cancer treatment
The new treatment, called ARS1620, pulls a mutated version of the KRAS protein to the surface of cancer cells on which the drug-KRAS complex acts as a marker that tells the immune system to "eat" me.
Then, immunotherapy can coax the immune system to effectively kill all cells bearing this marker.
Turning signs of cancer from the inside out
The immune system usually recognizes foreign cells because of the unusual proteins that protrude from their surfaces.
But when it comes to cancer cells, there are a few unique proteins at their tips.
Instead, most of the proteins that distinguish cancerous cells from healthy ones are found that the immune system cannot detect.
For years, the mutant Kras was considered untreatable, despite its prevalence in cancers.
The modified version of this protein, which drives the growth of cancer cells, works inside the cells.
The normal 'Krass' protein is found in healthy cells, but in cancer cells it is 'mutated'.
mutant protein
Charles Crick, the lead study author and professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco - said - in a statement carried by the York Alert website - that this mutant protein usually does not get detected because it is very similar to a healthy protein, "but when this drug is attached to it, it detects it immediately." .
The chemist at the University of California at San Francisco and Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher Kevan Shokat - who helped lead the research - said that "the immune system does indeed have the ability to recognize the mutant Kras, but it usually does not find it well, and when we put this tag on the protein it becomes It's a lot easier on the immune system."
The researchers designed an immunotherapy that targets this antibody, by persuading the immune system's T cells to recognize the Kras marker and target cells for destruction, and found that the new immunotherapy can kill cancer cells that contain mutant Kras.
More work is needed in animals and humans before the treatment can be used clinically.
The researchers say the new approach could pave the way not only for combination therapies in cancers with Kras mutations, but also for other similar pairs of targeted drugs with immunotherapies.
new strategy
KRAS mutations are found in about a quarter of tumors, making them among the most common in cancer.
Mutant Kras is also a target for sotorasib, which the Food and Drug Administration has given initial approval for use in treating lung cancer, and the two approaches may eventually work well together.
"It is exciting to have a new strategy that takes advantage of the immune system that we can combine with targeted Kras drugs," Crick said. "We think this may lead to deeper and longer responses in cancer patients."