A study from University of California, Berkeley has indicated that the cytokine therapy could increase the capability of NK cell to kill MHC classⅠtumor 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 classⅠmolecules 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.

Reference:

Ardolino M, Azimi C S, Iannello A, et al. Cytokine therapy reverses NK cell anergy in MHC-deficient tumors[J]. The Journal of clinical investigation, 2014, 124(124 (11)): 0-0.