The study, researchers from the University of southern California showed that cancer can manipulate the immune system for its development when the immune system begins to protect cancer cells from means of therapy. The data obtained in the course of this work, published in the journal Cell Reports.
Biologists have conducted experiments on mice, and also used data from the National institutes of health, USA. As a result, experts concluded that cancer cells can trick the macrophages (type of white blood cells involved in the control of inflammation) and thus to protect themselves from chemotherapy.
“Cancer cells can use the immune system for their own protection – this contributes to the protein PAI-1, which is an inhibitor of activation of plasminogen. This protein is related to the most aggressive forms of cancer,” – said the researchers.
Before this, scientists assumed that macrophages as cells of the immune system, should seek to destroy cancer cells. It was well known that these cells, characteristic of immunity and animals, and humans, the ability to capture and digest bacteria, and other unwanted and dangerous particles. However, after experiments on mice, it became clear that PAI-1 via interleukin-6 (IL-6) and STAT3 protein signaling “performative” macrophages, which take the form of protecting the cancer instead of fight it. As noted by the authors, they “saw not only how macrophages to protect the tumour, but also how they restore damage in cancer cells after chemotherapy.” Understanding this mechanism of manipulating the immune system will help to develop more effective strategies to combat cancer in the future, experts say.
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