A new study by UT Southwestern's Simmons Cancer Center scientists suggests that lactate, a metabolic byproduct produced by cells during strenuous exercise, can rejuvenate immune cells that fight cancer.
E-Mail
Targeted radiation is often used to study and treat diverse cancer types. A multidisciplinary research team based at the University of Chicago Medicine has recently focused on a type of cell that releases a protein that enhances resistance to cancer therapies and promotes tumor progression.
The study focused on Ter cells, which are extra medullary erythroid precursers that secrete the neuropeptide artemin. In the study, published February 24, 2020, in
Science Translational Medicine, the researchers showed that local tumor radiotherapy, systemic immunotherapy or the combination of both treatments were able to deplete Ter cells in the spleen, reduce artemin production and limit tumor progression both in the locally irradiated tumors as well as outside the radiation fields.
E-Mail
IMAGE: A UT Southwestern study discovered the molecular mechanism by which tumors defective in DNA mismatch repair respond to immunotherapy. This illustration depicts how cells use a programmed mismatch repair deficiency-activated. view more
Credit: Illustration by Yipin Wu
DALLAS - Dec. 17, 2020 - DNA that ends up where it doesn t belong in cancer cells can unleash an immune response that makes tumors more susceptible to immunotherapy, the results of two UT Southwestern studies indicate. The findings, published online today in
Cancer Cell, suggest that delivering radiation - which triggers DNA release from cells - before immunotherapy could be an effective way to fight cancers that are challenging to treat.