Cancer cells can treat tumors

Cancer cells can treat tumors.


New on suggests that many cancer cells are equipped with a congenial of suicide pill: a protein on their surfaces that gives them the skill to release an "eat me" notify to immune cells. The demand now, the researchers say, is to individual out how to coax cancer cells into emitting the motion rather than a dangerous "don't eat me" signal . A burn the midnight oil published online Dec 22 2010 in Science Translational Medicine reports that the cells please out the enticing "eat me" communicate by displaying the protein calreticulin.



But another molecule, called CD47, allows most cancer cells to from killing by sending the antagonistic signal: "Don't nourishment me". In earlier research, Stanford University School of Medicine scientists found that an antibody that blocks CD47 - turning off the notable - could employee battle cancer, but mysteries remained cheap glitter platform. "Many rational cells in the body have CD47, and yet those cells are not gripped by the anti-CD47 antibody," Mark Chao, a Stanford grade grind and the study's lead author, said in a university copy release.



And "At that time, we knew that anti-CD47 antibody care selectively killed only cancer cells without being toxic to most natural cells, although we didn't recall why". Now, the rejuvenated research has shown that calreticulin exists in a diversity of cancers, including some types of leukemia, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and bladder, capacity and ovarian cancers.



So "This investigation demonstrates that the argument that blocking the CD47 'don't eat me' sign works to kill cancer is that leukemias, lymphomas and many unalloyed tumors also display a calreticulin 'eat me' signal," Dr Irving Weissman, commandant of the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine and a co-principal investigator of the study, said in the release. "The scrutinization also shows that most universal chamber populations don't flash calreticulin and are, therefore, not depleted when we display them to a blocking anti-CD47 antibody".



The next imprint is to interpret how calreticulin works. "We want to skilled in how it contributes to the disease process and what is phenomenon in the cell that causes the protein to move to the cubicle surface," Dr Ravindra Majeti, an auxiliary professor of hematology and study co-principal investigator, said in the release detralex generic. "Any of these mechanisms present oneself hidden new ways to treat the blight by interfering with those processes," Majeti said.