How Immune Cells Talk to Each Other to Identify and Attack Tumors

Yale scientists have helped identify crucial ways that immune system cells congregate and communicate with each other to identify and eradicate tumors, an insight that can help improve immunotherapy outcomes. The findings were published in Cell. 

“The field has been trying to figure out how these mini-immune systems are set up in the tumor micro-environment and why do they correlate to great outcomes? [in immunotherapy]” asked Nikhil Joshi, co-senior author of the paper. The team discovered that these immune system cells communicate with each other.

Their analysis found that B cells actually do more than simply make antibodies against cancer.  In order to also unleash a robust response by CD8 killer T cells, the B cells must first interact with CD4 helper T cells in order to identify tumors to target. “T cells and B cells need to talk to each other before tumors can be targeted,” collaborator Joseph Craft said.

The team adds that future cancer vaccines may be more effective if they can jumpstart both antibody-producing B cells and helper T cells to bolster a broader immune system response. Such vaccines could be used in conjunction with traditional immunotherapy treatments to increase survival rates of patients with several forms of cancer, the researchers concluded.