2024-02-08 12:15:31
Immune cells such as cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) or natural killer (NK) are specialized in identifying tumor cells and eliminating them to stop tumor growth, but cancer cells have tools to repress the activity of the immune system or camouflage themselves and thus be able to reproduce indefinitely.
Cancer immunotherapy aims to reverse this immunosuppression and stimulate the activity of cells such as LTcs or NKs so that they can continue identifying and eliminating tumor cells and thus combat the disease.
One specific type of immunotherapy uses oncolytic viruses, which infect cancer cells to kill them directly or to attract the immune response against them.
Now, a research group from the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) and the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), located in Hospitalet de Llobregat and which is one of the institutions NEAR the Generalitat of Catalonia, has developed an oncolytic virus specifically, ICOVIR15K-MICAMut, which, by penetrating tumor cells and expressing their genetic material, attracts and activates NK cells.
In the laboratory, researchers have verified, using mice as an experimental model, how this virus induced a more efficient anti-tumor immune response and further restrained cancer growth.
The research team has been led by Marcel Costa García, from the Cancer Immunotherapy Group, in the Oncobell and iProCURE programs, from IDIBELL and ICO.
Members of the research team. (Photo: IDIBELL)
The results obtained so far are encouraging, and constitute a first step towards a future clinical trial. In this sense, Dr. Rafael Moreno, co-author of the study, assures that this work “highlights the role of NK cells in immunotherapy and presents an innovative approach that has great clinical potential.”
In any case, more research still needs to be done to design a robust treatment capable of eradicating a tumor.
The study is titled “Oncolytic adenovirus coding for shedding-resistant MICA enhances immune responses against tumors.” And it has been published in the academic journal Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy. (Source: IDIBELL)
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