Scientists from the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge have revealed the key features of immune cells in helping the body’s immune system fight cancer, which could lead to personalised treatments for advanced breast cancer.
Published in Nature Immunology, the team took biopsies from patients living with advanced breast cancer who had died after their cancer had spread to other parts of the body and used a technique known as B cell receptor sequencing to identify genetic variations in the B cells.
Similar to T cells, B cells help the body fight infections as well as cancer by producing proteins known as antibodies that bind to harmful substances, such as viruses and cancer, and recruit other parts of the immune system to eliminate them.
The B cell undergoes changes and diversifies to be even more effective at targeting the cancer cells it binds to.
In addition, researchers studied a group of patients with early breast cancer as they were being treated with chemotherapy.
The team found that some unique B cells that had identified and targeted cancer cells were present at several metastatic tumour sites, meaning that after recognising cancer in one area of the body, the B cells migrate to identify cancer at different sites around the body.
Additionally, researchers found that B cells were consistently present throughout patients’ treatment in those who had recognised cancer and had changed their genetic sequence to become more effective at identifying it.
The team then developed a computational tool using this information to predict which B cells were more likely to successfully detect and artificially develop the antibodies that these B cells would naturally create to be given as a personalised immunotherapy treatment.
Professor Kristian Helin, chief executive, ICR, commented: “This study provides a fascinating insight into the role of B cells over the course of a cancer’s growth and spread” and could be “used to focus efforts for the development of personalised cancer immunotherapies which could work in far more people than most existing immunotherapies”.