Checkpoint inhibitor-based therapies are being successfully used to treat patients with different types of cancer. However, this treatment has shown limited effectiveness in breast cancer patients. There is no single reason that explains this behavior, which is why it is the subject of study by many laboratories. A team from the Marc Research Insititute Hospital, led by Toni Celià-Terrassa, has demonstrated one of the reasons. “We have seen how certain tumor cells can hide or become invisible to the anti-tumor detection of the immune system and, in this way, when immunotherapy is applied these cells are not detected and lead resistance to treatment,” says the researcher. Given this discovery, the group is working on a project to manipulate the tumor cell and make it more detectable by the immune system.
The team has developed an mRNA therapy to express a gene that controls cell visibility. “In this way, we ensure that the machinery that exposes the antigens of malignant cells is specifically activated and that they can be made visible, detected and eliminated by the immune system,” explains Celià-Terrassa. It is a complementary and necessary action to increase the efficiency of therapies based on checkpoint inhibitors, she adds.
Preclinical results demonstrate that RNA therapy can be used to modulate the expression of LCOR, the gene of interest, in combination with immunotherapy to eliminate tumors thanks to the action of the immune system and the induction of the detection of malignant cells by the system. immune. The group is developing the product that it wants to bring to the clinic in the near future. At the moment, it is validating which is the best nano vehicle to introduce the gene of interest into the tumor cell, that is, the one that has the greatest efficiency and the least toxicity.
Transparency statement: This research is funded by the "la Caixa" Foundation, an entity that supports the Big Vang scientific information channel.
