| | |

Infections Can Help Fight Mesothelioma, Study Suggests

ByAlex Strauss
infections can help fight mesothelioma

There is new evidence to support the idea that infections can help fight mesothelioma. 

Researchers at a Belgium University say mice with mesothelioma had slower-growing tumors and lived longer when they were injected with a virus. 

The research team used a mouse virus called lactate dehydrogenase-elevating virus. The new study suggests that infections can help fight mesothelioma by activating cancer-killing immune system cells. 

The study could help doctors understand how to use the immune system to combat malignant mesothelioma in human patients. 

The Immune System and Mesothelioma

The immune system is constantly on the lookout for cells that could turn into cancer. When natural killer cells recognize a potential mesothelioma cell, they destroy it. 

But mesothelioma cells produce proteins that make it harder for the immune system to find them. This is one of the reasons that mesothelioma tumors are able to grow unchecked. 

Researchers theorize that infections can help fight mesothelioma by reactivating natural killer cells. 

How Infections Can Help Fight Mesothelioma

The Belgian study is not the first to show that instigating infections can help fight mesothelioma. But this study goes deeper in explaining the mechanism behind the effect. 

Researchers injected the lactate dehydrogenase-elevating virus into mice along with AB1 mouse mesothelioma cells. The goal was to measure the impact of the virus on mesothelioma development and growth. 

“Acute infection with lactate dehydrogenase-elevating virus strongly reduced in vivo early AB1 mesothelioma growth and death resulting from cancer development,” writes study author Mohamed Mandour of Université Catholique de Louvain in Brussels. 

The next question for the research team was how the virus produced this effect. 

Viruses as Information Carriers

Fighting cancer with viruses is not a new concept. Viruses make handy information carriers because they are small enough to get inside cells. 

Scientists have used altered viruses to introduce new DNA into cancer cells and immune system cells and change cell behavior. In these cases, scientists change the virus so that it cannot make a person sick. 

But the Belgian scientists were not trying to prevent infection. Their goal was to start an immune response to understand how infections can help fight mesothelioma.  

In the new study, the virus did not harm the mesothelioma cells. It was the natural killer cells that did the damage. The virus prompted the NK cells to produce Gamma-interferon, which kept the cancer cells in check.

The researchers conclude that certain kinds of viral infections can help fight mesothelioma. They alter the “microenvironment” or the area around where the tumor exists and make it harder for the tumor to grow.

Source:

Mandour, M, et al, “Lactate Dehydrogenase-Elevating Virus Enhances Natural Killer Cell-Mediated Immunosurveillance of Mouse Mesothelioma Development”, May 7, 2020, Infectious Agents and Cancer, https://infectagentscancer.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13027-020-00288-6

Similar Posts

Mesothelioma Still Rising Despite Ban in Ireland
|

Mesothelioma Still Rising Despite Ban in Ireland

ByAlex Strauss

A study in Ireland confirms that it can take many years for a ban on asbestos to have a measurable impact on a country’s rates of malignant mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is the most serious of a list of diseases – including lung cancer, pleural plaques, asbestosis, and others – linked with exposure to asbestos dust. Affecting the linings around the lungs and other organs, mesothelioma is often resistant to most cancer treatments and may be fatal within a year of diagnosis. According to the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat, Ireland is one of 55 countries that have enacted some type of asbestos ban. However, although Ireland banned asbestos in 2000, a new study published in Cancer Epidemiology shows that incidence of the…

Website Aims to Protect Homeowners from Mesothelioma
|

Website Aims to Protect Homeowners from Mesothelioma

ByAlex Strauss

Australia’s Cancer Council is trying to educate home renovators about their risk for mesothelioma with a new e-learning course. Australia has one of the highest per capita rates of mesothelioma in the world, largely because of several asbestos mining operations that were once located there. Although asbestos has been banned from building products in Australia since 1989, asbestos-linked diseases like mesothelioma, lung cancer, and asbestosis continue to pose a serious health concern. While mesothelioma has traditionally occurred among people exposed to asbestos on the job, Australia is now bracing for another “wave” of mesothelioma victims among homeowners who encounter asbestos while doing their own renovation projects. Cancer Council Australia has launched “kNOw asbestos in your home” in an effort to…

Ape Virus Shrinks Mesothelioma Tumors in Lab
|

Ape Virus Shrinks Mesothelioma Tumors in Lab

ByAlex Strauss

A virus that causes leukemia in gibbon apes may have the power to help fight malignant mesothelioma in people. Gibbon ape leukemia virus (GALV) has been tested for years as a viral vector, a carrier of therapeutic genetic information, in the treatment of various human illnesses, including cancer. A new study in Japan compared GALV with a leukemia virus derived from mice to see which carrier communicated most efficiently with mesothelioma cells. While both types of viruses replicated in most of the mesothelioma cell lines tested, the mouse-derived virus was not effective in a mesothelioma cell line called ACC-MESO-1. In this cell line, only the GALV spread efficiently both in culture and in mice that had been given human mesothelioma…

Mesothelioma Nurses Ready for New Cases in Australia
| | |

Mesothelioma Nurses Ready for New Cases in Australia

ByAlex Strauss

Australia is bracing for an expected new wave of mesothelioma cases in the next decade and the Lung Foundation of Australia is taking action now to get ready. The Foundation has paid for ten nurses from around the country to receive specialized training in helping patients and families cope with mesothelioma. The nurses, who have recently completed the training, are now equipped to lead treatment planning for these complex cancer patients and to help other nurses do the same. Pleural mesothelioma is an aggressive cancer that occurs in the lining around the lungs. It is caused by exposure to asbestos dust, a toxin that was once alarmingly prevalent in Australia where it was mined and heavily used in construction. Because…

Spanish Mesothelioma Deaths Likely to Continue for Decades
| |

Spanish Mesothelioma Deaths Likely to Continue for Decades

ByAlex Strauss

New research in Spain suggests that mesothelioma deaths will continue in the country until the “last surviving member” of the group of people exposed to occupational asbestos succumbs to the disease. Like many countries, Spain used asbestos heavily in the first half of the 20th century, especially in construction, where the mineral was prized for its durability, low cost, and resistance to fire and corrosion.  Asbestos was banned in Spain in 2002. Observing that more than 2.5 million metric tons of asbestos were imported into Spain from 1906 to 2002, researchers say deaths from mesothelioma have risen steadily. Between 1976 and 1980, a total of 491 Spanish people died of mesothelioma. By the 5-year period from 2006 to 2010, that…

Micro-RNAs May Offer New Way to Fight Mesothelioma
| |

Micro-RNAs May Offer New Way to Fight Mesothelioma

ByAlex Strauss

Scientists at one of the world’s top mesothelioma research centers, the Asbestos Diseases Research institute in Sydney, Australia, say that restoring the expression of certain micro RNAs in the cells of mesothelioma patients may offer a new way to fight the disease. A microRNA is a small RNA molecule which is involved in the regulation of gene expression. According to a new report in the Annals of Oncology, the Australian scientists found reduced expression of the micro RNA-15 family (miR-15/16) in the cells of mice with mesothelioma. “When malignant pleural mesothelioma cell lines were compared with the normal mesothelial cell line MeT-5A, the downregulation of miR-15/16 was 2- to 10-fold,” they report. This finding is consistent with previous cancer research…