Cytokine Therapy Enhancing NK Cell's Ability of Killing Cancer Cells

A study from University of California, Berkeley has indicated that the cytokine therapy could increase the capability of NK cell to kill MHC class?tumor cells. Their finding supports that cytokine therapy may be used in the treatment of patients whose tumor cells are lack of MHC class I molecules. This study was published on The Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Cytokines are powerful modulators of the immune system. Studies in mice have shown that cytokines can enhance the immune response to tumors and opened the possibility of using them as immunotherapeutic agents. Various cytokines have been evaluated as potential anticancer drugs, however, most cytokine trials have shown relatively low efficacy.

In this study, researchers have identified that the outcome of cytokine treatment of tumor-bearing mice largely depends on the level of expression of Mhc class?molecules on tumor cells, and is associated with the anergic state that NK cells acquire within such tumors. For the first time, they demonstrated that NK cell anergy is caused by impaired signal transduction and that activating cytokines can restore the full functionality of NK cells.

Their results indicate that such cytokine therapies would be optimized by stratification of patients. Further, the study suggests that such treatments may be highly beneficial in the context of therapies to enhance NK cell functions in cancer patients.

Scientists from Queen's University Belfast have reported a breakthrough on experimental physics; this finding demonstrates the mechanism in the process of killing cancer cells during chemotherapy. This study was published in Science.

The investigation of ultrafast processes in atoms received a major stimulus with the introduction of attosecond pulses in the extreme ultraviolet spectral region. In this study, researchers report the application of isolated attosecond pulses to prompt ionization of the amino acid phenylalanine and the subsequent detection of ultrafast dynamics on a sub-4.5-femtosecond temporal scale, which is shorter than the vibrational response of the molecule. They also present experimental evidence of ultrafast charge dynamics in the amino acid pheylanlanine after prompt ionization induced by isolated attosecond pulses.

The application of attosecond techniques to molecules offers the possibility of investigating primary relaxation processes, which invole electronic and nuclear degrees of freedom and their coupling.

The researchers hope to develop new chemotherapy for cancer treatment on the basis of this finding.