The University of Missouri researcher has discovered a new way to help the body’s immune system resolve this deception and kill cancer.
“Normally, your body’s immune cells are constantly on patrol to identify and destroy foreign entities in the body,” said Yves Chabu, Assistant Professor in the Division of Biological Sciences.
“Normal cells put up a ‘don’t-eat-me’ molecular flag that is recognized by immune cells, thereby preventing the destruction of normal tissues. But some cancers have also developed the ability to mimic normal cells and produce this ‘don’t eat me’ signal. As a consequence, the immune system fails to recognise cancer as a defective tissue and leaves it alone, which is bad news for the patient,” he added.
How Immunotherapy helps the immune system to kill Cancer
Immunotherapy is a cancer drug that effectively blocks the “don’t-eat-me” signal from cancer and helps the immune system to kill it.
Chabu, who is appointed to the College of Arts and Sciences, said that while immunotherapy works for some forms of cancer, prostate cancer is extremely immunosuppressive, indicating that the physical and molecular environment of cancer simply overwhelms the body’s immune system.
But Chabu might have unlocked a cure with the aid of a more than 50-year-old strain of bacteria.
“Cancers are different in one individual to the next, even when they affect the same tissue. These interpersonal differences contribute to whether or not a particular therapy will effectively kill cancer and help the patient. The bacteria itself is genetically pliable, therefore it can be genetically modified to overcome patient-specific therapeutic limits,” Chabu said.
“Imagine a patient whose cancer isn’t responding to traditional therapies and has no other treatment options. One can envision genetically modifying the bacteria such that it can unload therapeutics that specifically exploit that cancer’s unique vulnerabilities and kill it,” Chabu added.
In a previous study, scientists at the Cancer Research Center and the University of Missouri have produced a genetically distinct and non-toxic strain of salmonella named CRC2631 to select and kill cancer cells.
CRC2631 was derived from another strain of salmonella which had been kept at room temperature for more than half a century. Scientists like Chabu are now demonstrating the potential of CRC2631, which is eagerly attacking cancer tumours, to use the body’s immune system against prostate cancer.
“Because CRC2631 preferentially colonises tumour cells, the effect is mainly localized to the tumour. The use of CRC2631 to design and deliver patient-tailored therapeutics foretells potential in precision medicine, or the ability to tailor a treatment to a specific patient,” Chabu said.
Highlighting the potential of personalized health care and the effects of large-scale interdisciplinary collaboration, the University of Missouri System’s NextGen Precision Health initiative brings together system-wide innovators from four research universities in pursuit of life-changing health advances.
It’s a collaborative effort to leverage the strengths of Mizzou and entire UM System toward a better future for Missouri’s health. An important part of the initiative is the construction of the new NextGen Precision Health building, which will expand collaboration between researchers, clinicians and industry leaders in a state-of-the-art research facility.
