Cancer is like a wound that never heals, showing that the immune system can’t get rid of tumor cells. A new finding shows that a critical molecule can change immune cells from protectors into ones that help tumors grow.
Minsoo Kim, PhD, from the Wilmot Cancer Institute, said, “studying these harmful immune cells is crucial for developing treatments to block their damaging effects.” This discovery was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Kim and his team studied how tumor cells interact and how immune cells turn harmful. They found that PAF (platelet-activating factor) is crucial in this process. PAF helps cancer cells grow and weakens the immune system’s defenses. They also discovered that many cancers use the same PAF signals.
Kim, a University of Rochester Medical Center professor, said that, “targeting PAF could be very important because it might help treat many cancers.”
The team focused on pancreatic cancer, which is very deadly and brutal to treat because harmful tissues protect its tumors. They also looked at breast, ovarian, colorectal, and lung cancers, using 3D imaging to study how immune cells react to these cancers.
The study concludes that cancer can weaken the immune system by transforming immune cells into ones that support tumor growth. Understanding this process helps in finding ways to target these harmful cells and improve cancer treatments.
Journal reference:
- Ankit Dahal, Yeonsun Hong, et al., Platelet-activating factor (PAF) promotes immunosuppressive neutrophil differentiation within tumors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI:10.1073/pnas.2406748121.