A group of immune proteins called the inflammasome can help prevent blood stem cells from becoming malignant by removing certain receptors from their surfaces and blocking cancer gene activity, according to a preclinical study by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators.
TheĀ study, published Jan. 2 in Nature Immunology, may lead to therapies that target the earliest stages of cancer. The findings bolster the idea that the inflammasome has a dual role-it promotes inflammation associated with poor outcomes in late cancer stages, but early on, it can help prevent cells from becoming cancerous in the first place.
What was striking was that the innate immune system, which includes the inflammasome, has a role beyond infection. We found that it functions in maintaining homeostasis in the tissue, keeping an eye on whether stem cells are proliferating too much. By doing so, it prevents cells from becoming cancerous and this activity is independent of inflammation.”
Dr.Ā Julie Magarian Blander, the Gladys and Roland Harriman Professor of Immunology in Medicine and member of theĀ Jill Roberts Institute for Research in Inflammatory Bowel DiseaseĀ at Weill Cornell Medicine
The co-first authors of the study areĀ Dr. Andrew Kent, an assistant professor of medicine-hematology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Dr.Ā Kristel Joy Yee Mon, a postdoctoral associate in Dr. Blander’s lab.
Origin story
By the time patients typically go to the doctor with cancer symptoms, tumors have already formed. As a result, very little is known about cancer’s beginnings.
To get a better understanding of how