Skin Cancer Treatment Response Predicted by Immune Cell

Source: Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News, January 2024

Researchers from King’s College London, Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital Trust, and the Francis Crick Institute have discovered a rare type of T immune cell that can help predict whether a patient with advanced skin cancer may benefit from immunotherapy treatments.

The study was published in Nature Cancer, in an article titled, “PD-1 defines a distinct, functional, tissue-adapted state in V?1+ T cells with implications for cancer immunotherapy.”

“Checkpoint inhibition (CPI), particularly that targeting the inhibitory coreceptor programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1), has transformed oncology,” the researchers wrote. “Although CPI can derepress cancer (neo)antigen-specific ?? T cells that ordinarily show PD-1-dependent exhaustion, it can also be efficacious against cancers evading ?? T cell recognition. In such settings, ?? T cells have been implicated, but the functional relevance of PD-1 expression by these cells is unclear. Here we demonstrate that intratumoral TRDV1 transcripts (encoding the TCR? chain of V?1+ ?? T cells) predict anti-PD-1 CPI response in patients with melanoma, particularly those harboring below average neoantigens.”
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