Puncture Repair Kit

Here, live mouse cells in a dish show how the immune system aims to protect us from cancer. A killer T cell (pink) – a type of white blood cell in the immune system – catches an ovarian cancer cell (blue). As the T cell punctures its target, a dye demonstrates the damage, entering the cell, highlighting its DNA and RNA in red. Toxins called granzymes are released by the T cell and enter the cancer cell, forcing it to commit suicide. However, cancer has ways of resisting this attack. Using advanced electron microscopy scientists have now found that when punctured a repair response can be triggered in cancer cells allowing them to survive. ESCRT proteins are a key part of the repair kit, arriving at the puncture site within a minute. Blocking these proteins in cancer cells made it easier for T cells to kill them, which could be a strategy for future treatments.

Written by Henry Stennett

Henry Stennett

Writer

Henry is a science communicator at Cancer Research UK and a freelance writer. He used to research microbiology but now he’s got the writing bug.

• Video by Alex T Ritter
• Research by Alex T Ritter and colleagues, Genentech, Inc., South San Francisco, CA, USA
• Video copyright held by the original authors
• Research published in Science, April 2022