Super-killers

A group of researchers from Cardiff University (UK) has proposed a way to enhance the antitumor activity of cytotoxic lymphocytes, or T-killers.

The specialization of this type of immune system cells is the destruction of body cells affected by intracellular parasites (viruses and some bacteria) and cancer cells. The improvement of such lymphocytes gives hope to cure a wide range of cancers.

With the help of the CRISPR system, it is possible to replace the usual receptors on the surface of T-killers aimed at finding various deviations with specific "cancer" ones and thus reconfigure cells, significantly increasing their aggressiveness towards cancer cells.

The T-lymphocytes created in recent years, modified to fight cancer, have two types of receptors on their surface: their own, natural, and artificially synthesized in laboratory conditions (chimeric antigenic receptors), whose task is to detect malignant cells. Since the space on the surface of one cell is limited, these two types of receptors compete with each other, and, as a rule, as a result, natural "non-cancerous" receptors prevail. This fact significantly reduces the expected effect of treatment: T-killers modified to fight cancer cells do not have sufficient potential for a complete cure of the patient.

In a new study using CRISPR, it was possible to create T-lymphocytes that have only specific cancer receptors and do not have their own receptors on their surface. T-lymphocytes modified in this way are a thousand (!) times more effective at finding and destroying cancer cells.

The researchers believe that the results of their experiment can revolutionize cancer immunotherapy and give hope for a cure even to patients with the fourth stage of the disease.

Immunotherapy is a breakthrough in the treatment of oncological diseases, because the use of cells of your own body is the most promising direction in the fight against cancer. A new way to increase the sensitivity of immune cells to tumors, proposed by the authors of the study, is certainly able to move immunotherapy a step forward.

The study was carried out in laboratory conditions, and the new method is currently being tested in vivo.

Article by Mateusz Legut et al. CRISPR-mediated TCR replacement generates superior anticancer transgenic T-cells published in the journal Blood.