The traitor has been found

An unexpected cancer cell Helper has been discovered

Andrey Gorbachev, "Search"

The one who hinders us is the one who will help us. In the merciless war against cancer, humanity has dealt a serious blow to the enemy. It was possible to calculate the "traitors"-neutrophils – immune cells that cancer has learned to lure to its side. Molecular biologists from Sechenov University, together with their foreign colleagues, were able to recognize the defectors and force them to return to the bright side. The results of the study were published in the journal Nature Veglia et al., Fatty acid transport protein 2 reprograms neutrophils in cancer).

"If you want a simple comparison, remember the Snow Queen. Little Gerda went to the North Pole to wake up Kai. We do about the same thing: we remind neutrophils that they need to be good immune cells and fight the tumor, not help it," says study author Valerian Kagan

Neutrophils normally react to inflammation and are responsible for the absorption and "digestion" of bacteria, as well as the production of substances that kill and repel microbes. It is not yet known why, with the development of cancer, they accumulate at the borders of the tumor, producing substances that scare away the rest of the immune cells. But this leads to the mass death of healthy cells and the creation of conditions for the growth of neoplasms and the formation of aggressive metastases.

Comparing the neutrophils of healthy and sick mice, the scientists found an unusual number of polyunsaturated fat molecules in the latter. Which meant that the subjects had a clear violation of fat metabolism. Thus, it was possible to calculate the damaged SLC27A6 gene. Interestingly, other parts of the DNA associated with fat metabolism have not lost their functions.

And what if we try to turn off this affected gene, biologists wondered? It turned out that in this case, tumors appeared much more slowly, confirming the direct connection of the DNA section under study with the "traitors" of the immune system.

Then scientists made the assumption that it is fats that stimulate neutrophils to produce the hormone PGE2 in large quantities. This is the name of a substance that plays an important role in the immune system, signaling the onset of inflammatory processes and suppressing the work of so-called T–cells - special immune cells that recognize new pathogens, including cancer cells.

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