Pancreatic cancer is one of the most difficult cancers to treat. It is usually found late, spreads quickly, and doesn’t respond well to current therapies.
But scientists at Northwestern University have made a breakthrough discovery that could lead to better treatments. They found that pancreatic tumors use a sugar-based disguise to trick the immune system into leaving them alone.
Even better, the scientists created an antibody that can block this trick and help the immune system fight back.
The study, published in the journal Cancer Research, was led by Mohamed Abdel-Mohsen, an associate professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He and his team spent six years discovering how pancreatic cancer uses this sugar trick to stay hidden. “Seeing it work was a major breakthrough,” Abdel-Mohsen said.
Here’s what they found: In healthy people, cells use a sugar called sialic acid to signal the immune system not to attack them. It’s a safety feature to protect the body’s own tissues. But pancreatic tumors have learned to use the same trick.
They add sialic acid to a protein on their surface called integrin α3β1. This sugar coating fools immune cells into thinking the tumor is harmless.
The sugar sends a false “stand down” message to a receptor on immune cells called Siglec-10. As a result, the immune system ignores the tumor and doesn’t attack.
Once the scientists understood this disguise, they built monoclonal antibodies to block it. When they used the antibodies in lab experiments and mouse models, the immune cells began recognizing and attacking the cancer again. Tumors in the treated mice grew more slowly than in untreated mice.
Creating these antibodies was not easy. Abdel-Mohsen’s team had to screen thousands of antibody-producing cells before finding the one that worked. Now, they are preparing the antibody for human testing.
They’re also working on combining it with existing chemotherapy and immunotherapy to boost the chances of success. “Our goal is full remission,” Abdel-Mohsen said. “We don’t want just a smaller tumor—we want the cancer gone.”
If everything goes well, the treatment could be ready for human use in about five years. The team is also developing a test to figure out which patients have tumors that use this sugar trick. That way, doctors can match patients to the right treatment.
The discovery might also apply to other hard-to-treat cancers like brain cancer (glioblastoma) and diseases where the immune system is confused.
Abdel-Mohsen’s lab studies glyco-immunology—the science of how sugars control the immune system. He believes this growing field could lead to new treatments not only for cancer, but also for infectious diseases and conditions related to aging.
This discovery is a hopeful step forward in the fight against pancreatic cancer. By understanding how the disease hides from the immune system, scientists can now find better ways to expose and destroy it.
If you care about cancer, please read studies that artificial sweeteners are linked to higher cancer risk, and how drinking milk affects risks of heart disease and cancer.
For more health information, please see recent studies about the best time to take vitamins to prevent heart disease, and results showing vitamin D supplements strongly reduces cancer death.
The study is published in Cancer Research.
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