News

Immunotherapy is the biggest breakthrough in cancer therapy in the last decade: with its help, the body's own immune system can be enabled to fight cancer cells itself. Unfortunately, many types of cancer are resistant to these new drugs, for example in around 80 percent of bowel cancer patients. It is not only the cancer cells themselves that are decisive, but also the surrounding tissue, the so-called tumor microenvironment. In a recent study using preclinical models, researchers from the LOEWE-Frankfurt Cancer Institute FCI, the Georg-Speyer-Haus and FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg, the German Cancer Research Center DKFZ/ German Consortium for Translational Cancer Research DKTK and Goethe University have now discovered that inhibition of a specific factor, namely ZEB1 (the zinc finger E-box-binding homeobox, which is a protein encoded by the ZEB1 gene in humans. ) in the connective tissue cells in the tumor microenvironment makes the cancer susceptible to immunotherapies.

“It will be several years before the results can be transferred to the clinic. In any case, the molecular mechanism we show here is a valuable step towards understanding the mode of action of immunotherapies and the tumor microenvironment,” says Dr. Henner Farin, head of the research group.

The next step is now a more detailed characterization of the interactions of different cell types in the tumor microenvironment.

Original publication: DOI: 10.1038/s44319-024-00186-7  [Transfer title to Citavi project using this DOI]

For further information:

PD Dr. Henner Farin, Georg-Speyer-Haus Institute for Tumor Biology and Experimental Therapy, Paul-Ehrlich-Str. 42-44, 60596, Frankfurt am Main. Phone: +49-(0)69-63395-520, e-mail: h.farin@georg-speyer-haus.de