Northwestern Medicine investigators have identified a previously unknown regulator of tumor immune evasion, which may help improve the efficacy of current and future anti-tumor immunotherapies, according to recent findings published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
“The study provides a molecular insight into understanding why some cancer patients cannot be treated by the checkpoint blockade antitumor therapy, but others can,” said Deyu Fang, Ph.D., the Hosmer Allen Johnson Professor of Pathology and senior author of the study.
Antitumor immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that helps the immune system in fighting cancer and includes a range of therapy types, such as immune checkpoint inhibitors. Immune checkpoints help prevent the immune system from being too strong and eradicating other cells, including cancer cells.
Imperceptible to us, plants are surrounded by a fine mist of airborne compounds that they use to communicate and protect themselves. Kind of like smells, these compounds repel hungry herbivores and warn neighboring plants of incoming assailants.
Scientists have known about these plant defenses since the 1980s, detecting them in over 80 plant species since then. Now, a team of Japanese researchers has deployed real-time imaging techniques to reveal how plants receive and respond to these aerial alarms.
This was a big gap in our understanding of plant chatter: we knew how plants send messages, but not how they receive them.
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