Cytokines on Velcro

New Technology "seals" cancer-killing protein in Tumours

Georgy Golovanov, Hi-tech+

MIT specialists have developed a technology that prevents cytokine proteins from going beyond the boundaries of cancer tumors assigned to them. A protein that resembles a Velcro fastener in action helps to keep them inside the tumor.

Not so long ago, scientists saw the anti-cancer potential in cytokines, proteins that produce immune cells in order to communicate with each other. However, despite their effectiveness, there are no effective drugs based on them yet. The reason is that these proteins are extremely toxic to both tumor cells and healthy tissues, writes MIT News.

Injection of cytokines directly into the tumor allows you to focus all the effects of these proteins only on cancer cells, without affecting healthy ones, but so far such attempts have only led to the fact that cytokines left cancer tissues and entered the body in a matter of minutes.

The team of Professor Dane Whitrap described a new method by which the harmful effects of cytokines can be limited. To begin with, the scientists examined various proteins in the tumor to find among them those that can be used for cytokine therapy. And they chose collagen, which is produced in large quantities in solid tumors. Then they found the lumican protein, which is able to bond firmly with collagen.

Taking two types of toxic cytokines that stimulate and increase the response of immune cells, IL-2 and IL-12, the scientists tested the drug by injecting it to cancer-stricken experimental mice. In order to complicate the task, they chose melanoma, in which relatively little collagen appears in the tumor. And compared the results with another group of rodents who were also injected with lumican.

All the mice from the first group died. Alternate injection of the drugs slightly increased survival, but when they were administered together, the mice survived in 90% of cases.

Article by Momin et al. Anchoring of intratumorally administered cytokines to collagen safely potentiates systemic cancer immunotherapy is published in the journal Science Translational Medicine – VM.

Now the researchers plan to improve the technology and explore other therapy options that could benefit from combining with lumican.

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