Giving T cells extra batteries supercharges them against cancer
T cells are our first line of defense against cancer, but the battle tends to exhaust them. Now, scientists have found a way to give them extra “batteries” to keep them fighting longer, with promising early results in mice.
In a fair fight, the immune system would wipe out cancer every time – but this crafty disease doesn’t play fair. Along with its many tricks to avoid detection, tumors build microenvironments around themselves that are toxic to immune cells, draining them of energy. Sustained immune responses against a pathogen like cancer can lead to T cell exhaustion.
Finding ways to supercharge the immune system to continue the fight is the main goal of immunotherapy. Now, a team from Brigham and Women’s Hospital has demonstrated a new way to refresh T cells, by essentially replacing their batteries.
Mitochondria are organelles that produce chemical energy for cells, but during T cell exhaustion these little batteries can be lost or damaged. Previous studies have shown that cancer cells can use nanotubes like “tiny tentacles” to slurp up mitochondria from immune cells. For the new study, the researchers found that they could use the same mechanism to do the opposite – donate new mitochondria to T cells, from bone marrow stromal cells (BMSCs).
