BioQuakes

AP Biology class blog for discussing current research in Biology

Tag: #Tcells

Teaching Cancer to Fight Itself

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On February 27, 2024

In Student Post

Many of us know someone who has suffered from cancer and we have watched loved ones undergo the harsh treatments for it. With treatments such as chemotherapy, the side effects are hard to bear. So, what if your body could be taught to treat cancer on its own without having to experience the hair loss, fatigue, nausea, and anemia that external treatments can cause.

Cancer cells are very different from normal cells as they hide from the immune system which usually eliminates damaged or abnormal cells. Cancer cells also trick the immune system to help cancerous cells stay alive and grow. But, what if these cancer cells could be altered to teach the body’s immune system to fight the cancer that the cells come from?

7 Most Deadliest Cancers

In an experiment done by Stanford Medicine researchers used mouse leukemia cells to train T cells to recognize cancer in a way that could mimic the natural occurrence in the body, similar to vaccines. T cells recognize pathogens due to special antigen presenting cells (APCs) gathering pieces of the pathogen to show to the T cells what to attack. In cancer, the APCs would gather up the many antigens that characterize a cancer cell so T cells could be trained to recognize cancer antigens and wage a multi-pronged attack on the cancer.

Killer T cells surround a cancer cell

The researchers programmed mouse leukemia cells to be induced to transform themselves into APCs.  When they tested the cancer vaccine strategy on the mouse immune system, the mice were able to clear the cancer. The immune system was able to remember what the cells had taught them and when they reintroduced cancer to the mice 100 days they were able to have a strong immunological response to protect them. Additionally, they tried to see if the tactic used with leukemia would work with solid tumors so they used the same approach by using mice fibrosarcoma, breast cancer, and bone cancer. They found that the solid tumor transformation was not as efficient to that of leukemia, but it still had a positive result. With all three cancers, there was significantly improved survival rates.

They then went back to leukemia, but this time they studied acute leukemia in human cells. When the human leukemia cells APCs were exposed to human T cells from the same patient, they observed all of the signs that indicated the APCs were teaching the T cells how to attacked the leukemia.

This relates to what we have learned in AP Biology because we learned about cell division and how cancer differs from normal cell division. Cancer is a disease where some of the body’s cells divide and grow uncontrollably. This can start anywhere but also spread to other parts of the body very quickly. In its normal process, human cells grow and multiply through interphase and mitosis to form new cells as the body needs. Interphase is the phase in the cell cycle that prepares for cell division by growing cells and undergoing the process of DNA replication. The body has checkpoints that regulate the G1, S, and G2, phases of interphase. There are also checkpoints for mitosis, which is the division of cells that results in two daughter cells. When the cells become old or damaged, they die and new cells are regenerated. When this process breaks down and abnormal or damaged cells grow and multiply when they’re not supposed to, the body goes through a process called metastasis where cancerous tumors are formed. Cancer cells ignore the checkpoints and continue to divide and multiply.

This research has introduced a new way that could eventually treat cancer in a more harmless way while also ensuring that the body can fight off recurrence. So do you think that this will be the new treatment for cancer?

 

With the Same COVID Variant, Why Doesn’t Everyone Show the Same Symptoms? Genetic Variations Could Give Us the Answer

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On January 7, 2024

In Student Post

Have you ever wondered why you display less or more severe symptoms when you catch COVID compared to your friends even though it was the same variant? When I was infected with COVID, I couldn’t help but wonder why I had a more severe fever than some of my friends although we caught it around the same time, and I never understood why. In the medical community, this has always been a mystery as well until a study that was published in July that unveiled a possible explanation – genetic variants that are present in some people but not others. 

 

In the study, after analyzing the genetic data of 30,000 who carried the COVID virus, the researchers found that those the people with a specific gene variant – HLA-B15:01- were more than twice as likely to remain asymptomatic, and individuals with two copies of the variant showed a eightfold greater likelihood of being asymptomatic. This reveals that this could be the key gene that influences whether an individual is likely to display certain symptoms after catching COVID. Those participants who were found to not have this particular gene then displayed the common COVID symptoms such as fever, shortness of breath, and cough.

 

This study underscores the significance of variations in the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) complex, a set of genes that is crucial for the immune system’s ability to detect disease causing organisms. Further study conducted by the researchers revealed that this gene variant’s protective effect is due to its ability to tap into the body’s immune system against common viruses like the flu or cold. By analyzing T cells (white blood cells that play crucial roles in the body’s immune system) collected before the pandemic from individuals carrying the HLA-B15:01 variant, researchers discovered that these cells exhibited reactivity not only to a protein fragment from SARS-CoV-2 but also to similar fragments from seasonal viruses. This suggests that individuals with the HLA-B15:01 variant may have immune cells primed for the virus from exposure to seasonal viruses, contributing to their asymptomatic reaction to COVID.

 

In our AP Biology class, we learned about the specific mechanisms and functions of T cells, which is important in this case to understand why the genetic variation is able to prevent certain symptoms from occurring. T cells are type of white blood cells in the body’s immune system that recognize antigens presented by dendritic cells (Helper T Cells), stimulate other immune cells such as B cells to produce antibodies, as well as attack cells infected with the virus (cytotoxic T cells). In this case, those individuals who have the HLA-B15:01 variant would already have primed T cells from seasonal viruses that prepare their bodies against the actual COVID virus, leading to the lack of symptoms displayed. 

 

Looking ahead, this study suggests that these findings and observations could help inform and design the next generation of vaccines, offering potential solutions to prevent symptoms in those infected with viruses. After reading this article, how do you think this finding regarding the impact of genetic variation on COVID symptoms will influence the future of vaccines?



T-Cells: A New Fighter Against Cancer?

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On February 25, 2022

In Student Post

Cancer is something that most have heard of, and worry about. There are so many different types of cancer, and they are all taken extremely seriously due to it being able to cause more harm if left unattended to. When people think of cures and treatments for cancer, the most common one that is used across many different kinds is chemotherapy. While useful, it is not always effective, and it does not work on every type of cancer. Despite chemotherapy being the leading treatment against cancer, there are talks of a new treatment that “may treat all cancer.” 

Cancerous Tumor Cells

Cancerous Tumor Cells

BBC reported a study done that mentioned that there may be “A newly-discovered part of our immune system could be harnessed to treat all cancers.” However, before we look at this new possible treatment, we should first dive into how chemotherapy works. Chemotherapy is the process in which we use drugs to destroy cancer cells. While it can not always completely destroy cancer cells, it still aims to either keep the cancer cells from growing, dividing, and/or making new cells. The drugs in chemotherapy are meant to attack rapidly dividing cells, which is usually what cancer falls under. Despite this seeming all great, there are some drawbacks. Other rapidly dividing cells in our body include the lining of our stomach and hair, which is why some people lose hair and have digestive problems when undergoing chemotherapy. With all this in mind, it is important to note that chemotherapy is not always used for the destruction of cancer, but sometimes to weaken it in order to work as an aid to other treatments. All of this goes to show chemotherapy’s versatility, accessibility, and utility.

Chemotherapy bottles NCI

Chemotherapy Drug Bottles

Now that we know the traditional treatment to most cancers, chemotherapy, we can look at the potentially new treatment and how well it works and if it is the new best option.

This new study uses our immune system to help treat cancer, whereas chemotherapy uses drugs. These researchers studied how the immune system naturally responded to cancerous tumors. Normally, T-cells are used to fight all kinds of infections, but are not always effective against combating cancer. However, the T-cells that the researchers have discovered “could attack a wide range of cancers.” They even stated that “there’s a chance to treat every patient.” What made this T-cell different is that its receptors, which are what allow normal T-cells to detect certain infections, are able to detect most cancerous cells. Not only could they detect them, but they can kill lung, skin, blood, colon, breast, bone, prostate, ovarian, kidney and cervical cancer cells. This particular T-cell interacts with a molecule called MR1, so they are trying to figure out how to pair these together consistently, reliably, and safely. 

Killer T cells surround a cancer cell

Killer T-Cells Surround a Cancer Cell

This cancer treatment seems to work during all stages of the cancer cell’s life. Normally, as we learned in bio class, cancer cells are typically created from a gene mutation in either the oncogene or tumor-suppressor genes. These genes normally stop or terminate the soon to be cancer cell, but when mutated they can not do their job properly, thus leading to a cancer cell being created and duplicating unchecked. Once it is at this stage, the T-cells are able to do their work. I think that this is an interesting treatment as it can be used to help treat most stages of cancer, and could potentially be taken pro-actively in order to activate these T-cells in the body, making them always ready to fight off any cancerous cells. I believe that this could make it a safer, and more proactive version of chemotherapy. 

This new cancer treatment might seem promising, but there is no timeline on when a mass-produced reliable treatment using this method will be complete. Despite this, it is important to know that this could hopefully be an option for many in the future, and can hopefully combat and win the worldwide fight against cancer. 

 

Vaccines for Cancer?

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On October 23, 2019

In Student Post

We all know that Cancer is a genetic disease that really can’t be cured, but what if we could develop a Vaccine, like one for a virus, that would target the cells around it to target the cancer? That’s what Professor Darrell Irvine at MIT and his students are trying to accomplish. 

Professor Irvine is working on a vaccine that boosts T-Cells, which is a lymphocyte created in the Thymus along with Epithelial cells to boost immune response. The technique is called CAR-T Cell therapy, and it works by boosting anti-tumor T Cell populations, and using these enhanced populations to fight solid tumors. Before Dr. Irvine’s work, the therapy was unable to target any type of cancer that wasn’t Leukemia. The therapy had a difficult time working on solid tumors because they would attach the T cells to an antigen on the surface of B cells, but the immunosuppressive environment created by the tumor would kill the cells before they could reach the tumor.

Image result for T cells and tumor immunofluorescence

An immunofluorescence of Macrophages killing T cells before they can reach a tumor.

But, the researchers at MIT decided to give a vaccine to the lymph nodes, which are host to an abundance of immune cells, instead. Dr. Irvine’s hypothesis was that attaching them to the lymph nodes rather than B cells would give them the proper priming cues to prevent them from dying when they reached the tumor, and he was right. To actually get the vaccine to the lymph nodes the researchers used a technique MIT had developed a few years prior where they attach the vaccine to a lipid tail, which would then bond with albumin, a protein found in the bloodstream, and would then get an uber straight to the lymph nodes. In research in mice, the vaccine has been shown to drastically increase T cell response, and two weeks after treatment and being given a booster vaccine the CAR-T cells made up nearly 65% of the T cells found in the mice. This boost in T cell population resulted in complete obliteration of breast, melanoma, and glioblastoma tumors in 60% of mice.

This success rate is unlike any other treatment for Cancer currently available, and since it is given in a vaccine, memory T cells will be able to detect tumors in the future and destroy them before they become dangerous, just like how regular vaccines work. Between the success rate and the fact that the vaccine will be able to destroy future tumors, there is nothing really like this around for Cancer treatment, and I’m very excited to see the possibilities this has. And the fact that something like a vaccine, which is only capable to treat viruses, can possibly help fight against a genetic disease is also very intriguing.

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