Your immune system’s natural killer cells recognize and attack two major kinds of danger – cells infected by viruses and cells affected by cancer. When natural killer (NK) cells see a cancer cell, they kill it (naturally…). And a major research focus has been to define how NK cells do this “seeing.” One way NK cells see cancer is by recognizing bits of mutated DNA displayed on “silver platters” made by human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes.
In fact, there are two classes of HLA genes. HLA class 1 genes do exactly this task of making proteins that display a cell’s DNA for examination and evaluation. But while HLA class 1 genes help to identify bad actors among the body’s own cells, HLA class 2 genes help the body mark and target invaders from outside the body, rallying antibodies against things like bacteria.
So why has recent research shown that patients whose cancer cells are marked by high counts of HLA class 2 proteins have better outcomes? Sure, HLA class 1 brings NK cells to attack tumor tissue, but it’s not like HLA class 2 interacts with NK cells, right?
Read more at: University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Paul Norman, PhD, and colleagues identify a new way the immune system "sees" cancer (Photo Credit: University of Colorado Cancer Center)