In the war against cancer vaccines designed to teach the immune cells to look for proteins on cancer cells and fuse to kill has been less sparkling results provided that. Now, researchers report in the March issue of Nature Biotechnology that inoculating mice with a protein fragment that mimics the shape of abnormal cancerous cells sugars attached to proteins seems to do the trick. The new therapy is currently being studied in clinical trials
The new work -. Directed by Vasso Apostolopoulos, Austin Research Institute, Heidelberg, Australia - target the sugar molecules on the surface of a protein called mucin (MUC1), which is secreted by the epithelial cells of the mucous membranes of the kidney, lung, breast and other tissues. MUC1 on cancer cells is strewn with sugar molecules that are shorter and less numerous than those of normal cells. Previous experiments had shown that these sugars Nabot themselves make good vaccines because they are poor to stimulate immune cells to attack.
Apostolopoulos and his colleagues got around this problem by using a short protein fragment that mimics the structure of aberrant sugar molecules and is able to trigger a stronger immune response. They tested the mimetic in mice that received human breast cancer cells transplanted expressing the modified MUC1 protein. The mice that received the vaccine injections fake sugar will not continue to develop cancer, while the control animals did.
In an accompanying review Olivera Finn, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Sandra Gendler of the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona, called the new strategy an important approach that "could prove useful in a clinical context. "in fact, efforts are already underway to begin clinical trials, said member Ian McKenzie group." Initially, the test will be performed on cancer patients, "he said. "If this is successful, it will be done on patients in [high risk] groups."
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