In a new study, researchers found disrupting the interaction between cancer cells and certain immune cells is more effective at killing cancer cells than current immunotherapy treatments.
They focused on a protein called CD6 as a target for a new approach to immunotherapy.
The research was conducted by a team at Michigan Medicine.
Over the past two decades, new approaches to cancer treatment have been developed that block immune checkpoints, which are receptors on the surface of certain immune cells, like natural killer T cells.
Cancer exploits these immune cells and renders them dormant. This treatment, called checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy, gives these immune cells a chance to fight back.
Unfortunately, though, patients that become cancer-free are often left with autoimmune conditions that, in some patients, can eventually be fatal.
Only approximately one-third of patients with cancer ultimately benefit from currently available immune checkpoint inhibitors.
The researchers previously were able to create man-made CD6 and CD318, a receptor that CD6 interacts with, to act like human antibodies in the immune system and fight off cancer cells.
This new study proved successful in combatting human breast cancer, lung cancer and prostate cancer in cell lines, indicating that the anti-CD6 antibody, known as UMCD6, could be useful in treating a wide range of cancer types.
The team says the findings have implications beyond this first description of a potential new approach against cancer.
The ability of UMCD6 to prevent and treat autoimmune diseases makes the potential implications for cancer immunotherapy especially intriguing.
It’s been known that CD6 has to play a role in autoimmunity.
Prior research has shown that an antibody that binds to CD6 can effectively treat autoimmune mouse models of three different human diseases:
Rheumatoid arthritis, an inflammatory disease that causes the immune system to inflame the membrane that lines the joints; multiple sclerosis, a disease that affects the central nervous system, brain and spinal cord, and uveitis, an eye disease that can cause blindness.
Now, when treated with UMCD6, the team saw the mice show striking reductions in disease activity, autoimmunity and organ damage in mice.
There are ongoing studies of anti-CD6 antibodies in India, where an anti-CD6 antibody has been approved for the treatment of psoriasis.
However, in the United States, substantial research remains to be done to translate the discovery from laboratory models to human clinical trials.
The study is published in JCI Insight. One author of the study is David Fox, M.D., a rheumatologist and cancer researcher.
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