Attacks Evaders

Cancer cells are masters of evasion, finding innovative ways to survive treatments. Researchers now investigate why tumours return after immunotherapy, a treatment using the immune system’s killer T-cells which appear to effectively target and then kill cancer cells by injecting them with toxic granules. In a mouse cancer model, where tumours have returned after initial immunotherapy, scanning electron microscopy revealed that cancer cells hid within each other – a process called cell-in-cell formation – to avoid destruction. Exposing cancer cells from the tumours, to different immune cells in a dish revealed that killer T-cells specifically triggered cell-in-cell formation, as captured here using live-cell imaging. Injecting mice with drugs that blocked a molecular pathway activated by the killer T-cell attack before cell-in-cell formation, increased the effectiveness of subsequent immunotherapy. This reveals an important cancer mechanism for evading immunotherapy and a starting point to counter it.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Lux Fatimathas

Writer

Having pursued science through a career in research, communications and publishing, she is currently a writer and editor for a healthcare marketing agency and also juggles freelance science writing.

• Video from work by Amit Gutwillig and colleagues
• Department of Pathology, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
• Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in eLife, September 2022