In a recent study published in the eLife journal, researchers demonstrated that tumor cells evade immunotherapy by generating unique transient cell-in-cell structures, resistant to chemotherapy and destruction by T cells.
Despite some remarkable success stories, cancer immunotherapies that use the body’s immune system to combat cancer stops working in many patients. It is unclear why this occurs, but how the immune system attacks cancer cells might have a role to play in this phenomenon.
Immunotherapies activate specialized killer T-cells, which trigger the immune response to tumors. These cells can identify cancer cells and inject toxic granules through their membranes to kill them. However, killer T-cells are not always effective because cancer cells are inherently good at avoiding detection. During treatment, their genes tend to mutate, giving them novel ways to evade the human immune system.
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