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LONDON
Researchers have identified a protein that could represent a new therapeutic target for the treatment of pancreatic cancer.
Using this protein as a target, the team succeeded in creating CAR T cell therapy – a type of immunotherapy – that killed pancreatic cancer cells in a preclinical model.
“This is an exciting development,” said John Marshall, professor at Queen Mary University in London.
“The discovery that CEACAM7 allows us to kill pancreatic cancer cells specifically with CAR T cells while having no significant toxicity in non-tumor tissue, gives us hope that this strategy may be effective in the future.” , added Marshall.
CAR T cell therapy is an immunotherapy which has shown great promise for the treatment of certain blood cancers; however, treating solid tumors using this therapy has proven to be very difficult.
One of the barriers to success is toxicity in tissues other than cancer, as most of the proteins currently used to target CAR T cells to pancreatic cancer cells and other solid tumors are present at low levels on other normal tissues, causing toxic side effects, the researchers. said.
In this study, published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, the team identified a protein called CEACAM7 that may represent a safer treatment target for the development of therapies for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), the most common type. pancreatic cancer.
Using a specialized technique called immunostaining, the team examined a panel of human PDAC samples and normal tissue for the presence of CEACAM7.
A large subset of PDAC samples tested expressed CEACAM7, but the protein was undetectable in a panel of normal tissues including tonsils, lungs, liver, and prostate, suggesting that CEACAM7 may be an ideal target for development. CAR T cells against pancreatic cancer.
To determine the potential of CEACAM7 as a treatment target, the team developed CAR T cells targeted to CEACAM7 and applied them to PDAC cell lines as well as a preclinical model of PDAC.
CAR T cells efficiently targeted CEACAM7 expressing cells in PDAC cell cultures and eliminated cancer cells in an advanced preclinical model of PDAC.
— IANS
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