Mice blood cells raise hopes of cancer cure
White blood cells from mice that are naturally immune to cancer have cured tumors in other mice when injected and provided them with lifelong immunity to the disease, researchers reported.
Thomas Maugh
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
White blood cells from mice that are naturally immune to cancer have cured tumors in other mice when injected and provided them with lifelong immunity to the disease, researchers reported.
The finding points to the existence of a biological pathway previously unsuspected in any species - and researchers are working to understand the genetic and immunological basis of the surprising phenomenon.
Preliminary studies hint at the existence of a similar resistance in humans and researchers hope that harnessing the biological process could lead to a new approach to treating cancer.
"The idea of cells being able to kill tumor cells ... is very exciting," said biologist Howard Young of the US National Cancer Institute's Center for Cancer Research. "But this is a mouse, and there is no guarantee that the same gene will exist in people."
The findings have not been replicated in any other laboratory, primarily because the researchers who discovered the cancer-immune mice have only recently bred enough to supply them to other scientists.
"Our initial ability to collaborate was very limited by the number of mice that were actually available," said Mark Willingham of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, a co-author of the paper.
But Zhen Cui of Wake Forest, whose team published the findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, said he expected rapid replication of the results because the findings are so clear-cut and easily observed.
"This is a truly remarkable phenomenon," he said, "and it really needs confirmation from other institutions."
Cui and his colleagues stumbled on the immune mice by accident in 1999. They were injecting mice with a highly virulent form of cancer cells as part of a study of the biological mechanisms of cancer spread.
On April 13 of that year, a graduate student told Cui that one of the mice she had injected did not develop a tumor. Assuming the student had simply overlooked the mouse, he told her to do it again. And again. After a total of five injections - the last equal to 10 percent of the animal's body weight - the mouse remained free of tumors.
Intrigued, they bred the mouse and found that about half its offspring had the same resistance. The trait bred true through subsequent generations and the team eventually had a colony of about 700 resistant mice. Cross-breeding the mice with other strains transferred the resistance to them as well.
When cancer cells are injected into these mice, their white blood cells surround the tumor cells and rupture them in a process called "cytolysis." The same killing process occurs when tumor cells are formed naturally by the action of carcinogens. As the animals get older, injected cells might form a tumor, but the cancer is cleared in a day or two. The animals live a normal lifespan, about two years.
The team took white blood cells from immune mice and injected them into mice already carrying tumors, some extremely aggressive.
In every case, the cancers were destroyed, even if the cells were injected at a point distant from the tumor. The mice that received the cells, furthermore, were protected from new tumors for the rest of their lives.
The researchers have no idea how the immunity continues. The fact that the immunity can be transferred between mice indicates that the immunity phenomenon is more than a simple aberration in one strain of mice and gives hope that such manipulations can lead to a therapy for humans.
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=17&art_id=18372&sid=7870191&con_type=1
White blood cells from mice that are naturally immune to cancer have cured tumors in other mice when injected and provided them with lifelong immunity to the disease, researchers reported.
Thomas Maugh
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
White blood cells from mice that are naturally immune to cancer have cured tumors in other mice when injected and provided them with lifelong immunity to the disease, researchers reported.
The finding points to the existence of a biological pathway previously unsuspected in any species - and researchers are working to understand the genetic and immunological basis of the surprising phenomenon.
Preliminary studies hint at the existence of a similar resistance in humans and researchers hope that harnessing the biological process could lead to a new approach to treating cancer.
"The idea of cells being able to kill tumor cells ... is very exciting," said biologist Howard Young of the US National Cancer Institute's Center for Cancer Research. "But this is a mouse, and there is no guarantee that the same gene will exist in people."
The findings have not been replicated in any other laboratory, primarily because the researchers who discovered the cancer-immune mice have only recently bred enough to supply them to other scientists.
"Our initial ability to collaborate was very limited by the number of mice that were actually available," said Mark Willingham of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, a co-author of the paper.
But Zhen Cui of Wake Forest, whose team published the findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, said he expected rapid replication of the results because the findings are so clear-cut and easily observed.
"This is a truly remarkable phenomenon," he said, "and it really needs confirmation from other institutions."
Cui and his colleagues stumbled on the immune mice by accident in 1999. They were injecting mice with a highly virulent form of cancer cells as part of a study of the biological mechanisms of cancer spread.
On April 13 of that year, a graduate student told Cui that one of the mice she had injected did not develop a tumor. Assuming the student had simply overlooked the mouse, he told her to do it again. And again. After a total of five injections - the last equal to 10 percent of the animal's body weight - the mouse remained free of tumors.
Intrigued, they bred the mouse and found that about half its offspring had the same resistance. The trait bred true through subsequent generations and the team eventually had a colony of about 700 resistant mice. Cross-breeding the mice with other strains transferred the resistance to them as well.
When cancer cells are injected into these mice, their white blood cells surround the tumor cells and rupture them in a process called "cytolysis." The same killing process occurs when tumor cells are formed naturally by the action of carcinogens. As the animals get older, injected cells might form a tumor, but the cancer is cleared in a day or two. The animals live a normal lifespan, about two years.
The team took white blood cells from immune mice and injected them into mice already carrying tumors, some extremely aggressive.
In every case, the cancers were destroyed, even if the cells were injected at a point distant from the tumor. The mice that received the cells, furthermore, were protected from new tumors for the rest of their lives.
The researchers have no idea how the immunity continues. The fact that the immunity can be transferred between mice indicates that the immunity phenomenon is more than a simple aberration in one strain of mice and gives hope that such manipulations can lead to a therapy for humans.
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=17&art_id=18372&sid=7870191&con_type=1
