Research have discovered how pancreatic cancer hides from the immune system. The researchers found that this “invisibility cloak” can be disabled, causing aggressive tumors in animal studies to shrink by as much as 94%.
The study focused on MYC, a protein known to drive rapid cancer growth. While MYC’s role in making tumors grow was already clear, scientists did not understand how these fast-growing cancers avoided being detected by the immune system. The team discovered that MYC also helps cancer cells hide by silencing internal danger signals that would normally alert immune defenses.
Fast-dividing cancer cells produce faulty genetic material that should trigger an immune response. Under stress, MYC gathers into clusters that remove these warning signals before the immune system can detect them. When researchers altered MYC so it could no longer perform this cleanup function, tumors in animals with healthy immune systems were quickly recognized and attacked, shrinking dramatically within weeks.
Because MYC’s growth function and immune-hiding function are separate, future drugs might be able to block the hiding mechanism without harming normal cells. Although this discovery is especially promising for pancreatic cancer, one of the deadliest cancers, turning it into a treatment will require more research to develop drugs that can safely expose tumors to the immune system.