A study published in Science Advances reveals a novel strategy that allows tumors to evade the body’s immune response critical for their elimination. Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and collaborating institutions discovered in a mouse model of non-small cell lung cancer that tumors that express protein MAGE-4 and have lost the Pten gene, a tumor suppressor, accelerate their development and progression into metastasis. In the mouse model and human tumor samples, MAGE-4 drives the accumulation of plasma immune cells that suppress antitumor immunity. The study points at novel potential therapeutic avenues that could be implemented to restore the ability to fight the tumor.
It’s known that patients with lung cancers that express MAGE-4 have an unfavorable prognosis, but whether or how this protein helps cancer grow was not well understood. In the current study, we investigated the malignant potential and immunological roles of MAGE-A4 in mouse and human non-small cell lung cancer.”
Dr. Farrah Kheradmand, corresponding author, Nancy Chang, Ph.D. Endowed Professorship for the Biology of Inflammation Center and professor of medicine-pulmonary at Baylor
The researchers developed a mouse model that expressed MAGE-4 in the airway expecting that it would promote cancer growth. “To our surprise the cancer did not develop; it seemed that something was missing for this to happen,” said Kheradmand, member of the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center and core faculty at the Center for Translational Research on Inflammatory Diseases in the Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affair Medical Center. “We approached our colleague and