A new study has revealed how cancer can evade the immune system and spread through the body. This research was led by the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS), with contributions from Duke-NUS Medical School, KK Women and Children’s Hospital, A*STAR’s Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN), the University of Southampton and the Alan Turing Institute.
For several years, scientists have been trying to understand why some cancer cells manage to avoid detection and destruction by the immune system. In March of this year, the findings of this breakthrough research were published in the highly regarded Nature Communications journal. The implications of this discovery are potentially significant, as it could provide the foundation for creating more effective cancer treatments.
The immune system is tasked with finding and destroying cancer cells. However, in some instances, those cancer cells go undetected, allowing them to develop and spread. The researchers, led by Professor Gopal Iyer, identified a treatment designed to relieve stress on immune cells. This uncovered that the immune cells, given the right tools, were much more capable of killing cancer cells effectively. Unfortunately, this treatment did not work in all cases, as some of the cells still remained exhausted, thereby allowing cancer to evade the immune system.
To further their investigation, the team studied and profiled primary and metastatic lymph node tumours from fourteen patients with head and neck squamous cell cancers, using single cell and RNA sequencing. They observed the presence of pre-metastatic cells, in addition to the substantial proportion of CD8+ cells that were unable to protect against cancer due to recurring exposures. Subsequently, the team sought to target pathways that exclusively affected cancer cells, as well as pathways that cancer cells use to negatively influence immune cells. This research eventually led them to the conclusion that MDK-signalling is employed by cancer cells to escape detection and off the effects of PD1-based therapy.
The findings of this research are important in improving the way cancer is treated. Professor Iyer states that multiple pathways must be used to effectively treat cancer – understanding how cancer cells evade the immune system, how to target them, as well as how to rejuvenate immune cells so that cancer can be successfully detected and destroyed.
At the National Cancer Centre Singapore, which is owned by a number of public and private sector partners, Professor Gopal Iyer is the head of the Division of Medical Sciences and the Department of Head and Neck Surgery in the Division of Surgery and Surgical Oncology at the Singapore General Hospital. He is cited as being one of the leaders of the study who is advocating for the utilisation of multiple pathways to improve cancer treatment outcomes.
