Immunotherapy Immune
gene therapy is a targeted approach to cancer therapy where actual immune cells of the patient and their genes are manipulated to produce an anti-tumor response. The body's own
immune system is used to attack the tumor cells, therefore the immune system can naturally attack the specific cancer cells again to in the future if necessary. Many types of
immunotherapies exist including
bone marrow transplants,
antibody therapies, and various manipulations of host immune cells to target and kill cancer cells.
Cellular receptors, antigens, and
cofactor molecules are some such cellular manipulations to target cancer cells. This is a method of cancer treatment that works on the cellular and molecular level.
Combining CAR-T with checkpoint inhibitors, cytokines Some
regulatory proteins, specifically immune
checkpoint inhibitors, have been found to reduce the ability of T cells to multiply within the body. In order to optimize the efficacy of CAR-T gene therapy, these checkpoint inhibitors can be blocked to stimulate a robust anti-tumor immune response, spearheaded by the CAR-T cells. There are various known inhibitory receptors on the CAR-T cell; through manipulation of these receptors and the molecules that bind them, expression of the CAR-T cell can be amplified. CAR-T cells can also be combined with
cytokines to improve the efficacy of the immunotherapy method. Cytokines are messenger molecules that can act on themselves, nearby cells, or distant cells. The signal pathways of these cytokines can be used to enhance CAR-T anti-tumor characteristics. For example,
Interleukin 2 (IL2) is a cytokine that acts as a
growth factor for various immune system cells, including T cells. In regards to gene therapy, IL2 can be used to increase replication and dispersing of CAR-T cells throughout the body.
Issues with CAR-T therapy There is room for improvement with this gene therapy approach. Firstly, the antigens of interest expressed on the cancer cells may sometimes be expressed on regular body cells, too. This means the body's T cells will attack its own healthy cells instead of the cancer cells when the antigen is lacking specificity with just the cancer cell. A possible solution to this problem is to include two different antigen receptors on the CAR-T cells to make them even more specific. The second issue with the CAR-T immunotherapy approach is that it can cause
cytokine release syndrome. This is when an excess of
pro-inflammatory factors are released by the immune system and can cause unpleasant side effects for the patient like
nausea and a high
fever.
Gene therapy In the past few decades, gene therapy has emerged as a targeted way to treat cancer. Gene therapy introduces foreign
genetic sequences to diseased cells in order to change the
expression of these cancerous cells that are functioning with severely damaged genomes. Cancer cells do not behave like normal cells, so the methods for ridding the body of these cells are more complicated. Manipulation of the pathways controlled by certain genes and their regulators are a large branch of cancer research. ==See also==