Cheaply and effectively: a virus found in a plant will become a weapon in the fight against cancer

To spread: Researchers have suddenly found that the virus found in a legume can be used for cancer treatment. It is believed that the virus can be an affordable and effective method of immunotherapy if clinical trials are successful. The Chinese Win Mosaic virus (CPMV), plants known as black -eyed peas, can pave the way to create an inexpensive but effective new method of treatment of cancer, IFLSCIENCE writes. In focus. Technology has appeared its Telegram channel.

Subscribe not to miss the latest and most intrusive news from the world of science! Immunotherapy is a promising field of medicine that uses the patient's immune system to treat cancer. Scientists study several viruses at once that can become a promising contender for immunotherapy treatments. One of them is a black -eyed pea, which, as a new preclinical study shows, effectively affects cancer cells in dogs and mice.

Scientists have noticed that when exposed to CPMV cancer "releases the micro -tumor of the tumor from immunosuppression and restarts the cycle of immunity to cancer. " In most cases, the human human immune system is able to independently identify and destroy potentially malignant cells. But sometimes a malignant cell can slip from the observers and continue development. Earlier, researchers have shown that immunosuppression can be turned back by introducing into CPMV tumors.

This attracts the body's immune cells to the tumor, where they destroy cancer cells, which leads to "effective destruction of tumor cells". At the same time, CPMV activates B cells, cytotoxic cells and T cells, creating immune memory. Thus, the immune system fights the target tumor and seeks metastatic tumors in other parts of the body.

According to the graduate student of the Department of Chemical and Nano-Engineering of the University of California at San Diego Anthony Omole, the most interesting was that the human immune cells were not infected with CPMV, they respond to him and reprogram into an activated state. This process eventually teaches them to identify and destroy cancer cells. According to the team, this interesting effect was not observed when using other plant viruses.

But the question remains: why is this virus? To answer this question, the homolya with colleagues compared CPMV with another plant virus. It turned out that the virus of chlorotic drop of cow pea (CCMV) was selected because it is closely linked to CPMV, but does not cause such an effective antitumor response. The team also noted some similarity: both viruses produced nanoparticles of similar size and were absorbed by immune cells at the same rate.

However, scientists also watched two key differences: Omole notes that the results of a new study published in the Cell Biomaterials magazine give an idea of why CPMV is working so well. Scientists now hope that further clinical trials will help develop a new effective and affordable way to treat cancer. Earlier, focus wrote that a regular sweetener of tea would be a secret weapon against cancer: that it is so special.