Blocking an enzyme may improve melanoma immunotherapy outcomes
Source: Medical Xpress, April 2025
About 65% of melanoma patients do not respond to immunotherapy. New work by the team of Prof. Max Mazzone (VIB-KU Leuven Center for Cancer Biology) discovered that an enzyme called HPGDS (expressed in a specific subset of macrophages), plays a key role in immunotherapy resistance. Blocking HPGDS may be a new way to overcome immunotherapy resistance in melanoma patients and potentially in other tumors facing similar challenges. The results of this study were published in Cancer Discovery.
The field of cancer immunotherapy has witnessed exciting therapeutic advances in the last decade, particularly in the treatment of melanoma, a highly aggressive form of skin cancer. However, approximately 65% of melanoma patients still do not respond to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapies.
The immunosuppression induced by tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) may be pivotal in this process. TAMs have been shown to impede immune system function, thereby fostering tumor growth and metastasis dissemination. Thus, reprogramming TAM phenotype away from their immunosuppressive state might boost cancer treatments.