New Scientist
Image: Carl Zeiss Microscopy
Could the immune system be reprogrammed to fight cancer? It seems that macrophages – immune cells roped in by tumours to help them grow – can be turned into cancer killers.
Macrophages normally clean up dead and dying cells after an infection. In theory, macrophages should gobble up cancer cells too. “They should [swallow] dead and dying cancer cells, and stimulate an immune response against the tumour,” says David Ian Stott of the University of Glasgow, UK.
Instead, cancer cells release chemical signals that persuade macrophages to turn traitor, releasing growth factors that feed the tumour rather than destroy it. “Macrophages are educated by cancer cells to promote tumour growth,” says Thorsten Hagemann at Barts and The London Queen Mary’s Medical School in London. “If you remove macrophages from mice that are susceptible to cancer, they develop fewer tumours.”
The trouble is that removing all macrophages would leave the body vulnerable to infection. “It would be better to alter macrophage behaviour to make them attack tumours,” says Hagemann, whose team has been trying to do just that. Read more on newscientist.com…
