Arming the Immune System to Against Cancer

        Researchers at Cancer Research UK say they have shown that a class of experimental drug treatments already in clinical trials could also help the body’s immune system to fight cancer. They published their study (“Nuclear FAK Controls Chemokine Transcription, Tregs, and Evasion of Anti-tumor Immunity”) in Cell.

        Scientists at the University of Edinburgh revealed that a protein called Focal Adhesion Kinase, or FAK, which is often overproduced in tumors, enables cancer cells to elude attacks by the immune system. FAK usually sends signals to help healthy cells to grow and move around.

        But the researchers discovered it plays a different role in cancer cells, changing the nature of the immune system so that it protects the cancer cells rather than destroying them. They then showed that using an experimental FAK inhibitor prevented this change in the immune system allowing the cancer cells to be treated as a threat.

        This is the first time that FAK inhibitors have been shown to influence the immune system, and particularly whether or not it recognizes and fights cancer, according to the team. This provides an exciting potential new use for existing FAK inhibitor drugs.

        The research was carried out in mice with a form of squamous cell carcinoma, but is likely to also apply to other cancers. The results showed that tumors completely disappeared when the mice were given FAK inhibitors.

        This research was funded by Cancer Research UK, European Research Council, and the Medical Research Council.

        Alan Serrels, Ph.D., one of the lead authors, at the Edinburgh Cancer Research UK Center at the University of Edinburgh, said: “FAK is hi-jacked by cancer cells to protect them from the immune system. This exciting research reveals that by blocking FAK, we’ve now found a promising new way to help the immune system recognize the cancer and fight it.

        “The drug in this study is already in early stage clinical trials and could potentially be an excellent complement to existing immunotherapy treatments. Because it works within tumor cells rather than influencing the immune cells directly, it could offer a way to reduce the side effects of treatments that harness the power of the immune system against cancer.”

    The hope is that the drugs may be able to help the immune system to destroy cancer cells.