Researchers at Samsung Medical Center and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium have found a new immune chemotherapy mechanism in treating colon cancer.

A Samsung Medical Center research team, led by Professors Cho Yong-beom (left) and Park Woong-yang, has found a new mechanism in treating colon cancer, through joint works with their Belgian partners. (SMC)

Immuno-anticancer drugs used in metastatic colorectal cancer patients are currently applicable only to high-frequency microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H) colorectal cancer, which accounts for only 15 percent of all patients. In contrast, the remaining patients do not respond to such treatments.

To come up with a better treatment method, the joint research team, led by Professors Cho Yong-beom, Park Woong-yang, and Sabine Tejpar, separated cancer tissues obtained from 23 Korean and six Belgian colon cancer patients into thousands of individual cells per cell and analyzed genome information.

The team went through such a process to identify the microenvironment of cancer that affects the process of cancer growth and metastasis.

After analyzing the genome information of 100,000 colon cancer single cells, the team revealed that myofibroblasts and myeloid cells make up the microenvironment in colon cancer tissues and function as immune suppression.

“This is because these cells were inducing overexpression of the transforming growth factor (TGF-β),” the team said. “TGF-β has a function of protecting cancer cells from immune cells, and is known to lower the therapeutic effect of immuno-cancer drugs.”

Professor Park said, “Based on this research, it is possible to develop cancer treatment drugs through surrounding microenvironmental cells and not cancer cells.”

Nature Genetics published the results of the research.

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