In a new study from The Institute of Cancer Research, researchers found a cancer vaccine could be an effective way to prevent cancer from evolving and becoming resistant to treatment.
They examined the use of a cancer-killing virus in clinical trials and found that although some patients initially responded to the treatment, their tumors soon became resistant.
The researchers showed that the specific mutations causing tumor cells to become resistant to the viral treatment could be anticipated and exploited using a vaccine.
The vaccine was shown to trigger the immune system to destroy treatment-resistant tumor cells.
The findings could be applicable to other types of therapy that drive drug resistance.
The study is the first to show that a vaccine of this type can be used to overcome cancer evolution.
Tumor cells treated with an anti-cancer virus are known to mutate and evolve to escape the virus, rendering the viral treatment less effective.
The scientists found that a predictable mutation occurred in the tumor cells in response to infection with the virus.
Virus treatment caused a mutation within the cancer cells, in a gene called CDSE1, which usually protects against viruses by slowing their replication.
The mutated CDSE1 protein, produced by the CDSE1 gene, created a unique antigen—a structure recognized by the immune system as a target—which the researchers used to develop a vaccine.
The researchers produced a vaccine targeting the mutation.
They showed that injecting the vaccine into mice could trigger the immune system to destroy the drug-resistant tumor cells, killing the cancerous cells and therefore reducing the size of their tumors.
This vaccine triggers the immune system to destroy the drug resistant tumor cells, preventing the cancer from further evolving.
The researchers are now exploring the possibility of applying this type of approach to other therapies which drive tumor mutation and evolution.
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The study is published in Nature Communications. One author of the study is Professor Alan Melcher.
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