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Pancreatic cancer hidden in plain sight

Pancreatic cancer does not respond to certain anticancer treatments that boost immune responses. A mechanism active in tumour cells that contributes to this evasion of immune targeting has been uncovered.
  1. Anirban Maitra

    1. Anirban Maitra is in the Sheikh Ahmed Center for Pancreatic Cancer Research, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.

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A consistent hallmark of pancreatic cancer is the inability to treat it with immunotherapy — an approach that harnesses the body’s immune response to target a cancer. Writing in Nature, Yamamoto et al.1 reveal a mechanism that enables pancreatic cancer cells to evade an immune response. The process implicated is usually associated with the normal degradation and recycling of cellular proteins. The authors find that inhibition of this pathway, using drugs or by genetic approaches, reverses this immune evasion in animal models of pancreatic cancer. The finding provides a compelling rationale for investigating whether targeting this pathway might be of benefit in the clinic.

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Nature 581, 34-35 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01103-3

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