A drug that activates the immune system against a type of skin cancer does so by promoting new immune responses to cancer, rather than amplifying pre-existing ones.
The melanoma drug ipilimumab boosts the activity of immune-system cells called T cells, which recognize a variety of molecules on tumour cells, marking them for destruction. Pia Kvistborg and Ton Schumacher of the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam and their team compared T cells from melanoma patients before and after treatment and found that the drug broadened the range of melanoma targets recognized by T cells. But melanoma-specific T cells that were already present before treatment did not expand their ranks, suggesting that the drug stimulates new responses.
Boosting the range of T cells could be a useful strategy for other cancer immunotherapies, the authors say.
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Therapy broadens immune response. Nature 513, 462–463 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/513462e
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/513462e