The tumor microenvironment is studied with bioinformatic techniques.
Researchers at the Institut d’Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (Idibaps) at Hospital Clínic de Barcelona are revealing what causes chronic lymphocytic leukemia, the most frequent hematological tumor in adults, to worsen and require immediate treatment, or to remain stable without major changes for the lives of patients. “During years of research we have identified genomic and epigenomic factors that explain part of these two possible evolutions of the tumor,” says Elías Campo, principal investigator. “However, it is not enough. The tumor develops mechanisms and instructs the cells around it, such as those of the immune system, to help it progress and proliferate. We believe that the answer lies in how tumor cells communicate with their environment, or how the balance between the defense of the immune system against the tumor is regulated, or in its favor”, he adds.
Thanks to advances in technology, Campo and his team can investigate the tumor microenvironment in detail using cell-by-cell analysis techniques, quickly, thanks to bioinformatics processing of the data. “One of our objectives is to identify how we can enhance the immune response against the tumor. To do this, we first have to understand how that response is modulated in the environment of that tumor”, he clarifies.
The researchers believe that identifying where this modulation occurs is also important and suspect that it may occur primarily in lymph nodes, apart from marrow and blood. “We want to find out if the interaction between the tumor and the microenvironment is more decisive in the lymph nodes for chronic lymphatic leukemia to progress,” says Campo. Discovering it will allow us to refine more and better which processes in the body to silence in order to combat this hematological neoplasia. Isabel Troytino