癌症患者的免疫系统是如何失效的?

癌症被描述为“无法愈合的伤口”，这意味着免疫系统无法消灭入侵的肿瘤细胞。

Cancer has been described as "a wound that does not heal," implying that the immune system is unable to wipe out invading tumor cells.

一项新的发现证实，一种关键分子可以对免疫细胞进行重编程，使其变成促进癌症生长的坏人，而免疫细胞通常可以防止感染和癌症。

A new discovery confirms that a key molecule can reprogram immune cells that normally protect against infection and cancer, turning them into bad guys that promote cancer growth.

研究这些“促肿瘤”免疫细胞的行为很重要，因为它们可能成为阻止其有害活动的治疗目标，该研究的通讯作者、威尔莫特癌症研究所的研究负责人Kim博士说。

Studying the behavior of these "pro-tumor" immune cells is important because they could be targets for therapies that block their harmful activity, said Minsoo Kim, PhD, corresponding author of the study and a research leader at the Wilmot Cancer Institute.

美国国家科学院院刊(PNAS)发表了这一发现。

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published the discovery.

Kim领导的科学家团队研究肿瘤环境中细胞之间发生的动态相互作用，以及导致免疫细胞从好到坏的潜在因素。

Kim led a team of scientists investigating the dynamic interactions that occur between cells in the tumor environment, and the underlying factors that cause the harmful transformation of immune cells from good to bad.

他们发现血小板活化因子(PAF)是控制免疫细胞命运的关键分子。

They found that PAF (platelet-activating factor) is the key molecule that controls the destiny of the immune cells.

PAF不仅会招募促癌细胞，还会抑制免疫系统的抵抗能力。

PAF not only recruits cancer-promoting cells, but it also suppresses the immune system's ability to fight back.

此外，他们发现多种癌症依赖于相同的PAF信号。

In addition, they found that multiple cancers rely of the same PAF signals.

如果我们找到一种可以干扰PAF的治疗方法，它可能适用于许多类型的癌症。

If we find a treatment that could interfere with PAF, it could potentially apply to many types of cancer.

Journal Reference:

Ankit Dahal, Yeonsun Hong, Jocelyn S. Mathew, Adam Geber, Sarah Eckl, Stephanie Renner, Cooper J. Sailer, Allison T. Ryan, Sana Mir, Kihong Lim, David C. Linehan, Scott A. Gerber, Minsoo Kim. Platelet-activating factor (PAF) promotes immunosuppressive neutrophil differentiation within tumors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2024; 121 (35) DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2406748121