Villablanca et al
Tumor-mediated liver X receptor-alpha activation inhibits CC chemokine receptor-7 expression on dendritic cells and dampens antitumor responses Villablanca EJ, Raccosta L, Zhou D, Fontana R, Maggioni D, Negro A, Sanvito F, Ponzoni M, Valentinis B, Bregni M, Prinetti A, Steffensen KR, Sonnino S, Gustafsson J-Å, Doglioni C, Bordignon C, Traversari C, Russo V
Researchers at the Scientific Institute San Raffaele in Milan, in collaboration with researchers at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have discovered that human and mouse tumors release cholesterol metabolites or LXR ligands dampening the antitumor immune response, thus allowing tumors to grow in an uncontrolled way. Particularly, these metabolites impair the function of a specialized subset of immune cells, which orchestrate the antigen-specific immune response, namely dendritic cells. Importantly, the pharmacologic blockade of this mechanism restores the antitumor immune response in mouse tumor models, leading to tumor rejection.
This study led at the Scientific Institute San Raffaele by Dr. Russo and Dr. Traversari in collaboration with Prof. Gustafsson and Dr. Steffensen of the Karolinska Institutet, has been published in the top biomedical journal Nature Medicine. This finding offers hope of being able to treat tumors with drugs that affect cholesterol metabolism.
Read full paper in Nature Medicine: Nat Med. 2010 Jan;16(1):98-105. Epub 2009 Dec 27.
