José Carlos Machado

A team of researchers from the Institute for Research and Innovation in Health (i3S) at the University of Porto has identified persistent vulnerabilities in colorectal tumors that could be exploited to develop personalized therapeutic cancer vaccines. The study, published in the journal Gut, shows that although these tumors can evade immune surveillance, they retain neoantigens capable of eliciting an effective immune response.

The tumor immune microenvironment exerts a pivotal influence in tumor initiation and progression. The aim of this study was to analyze the immune context of sporadic and familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) lesions along the colorectal adenoma–carcinoma sequence (ACS). We analyzed immune cell counts tumor mutation burden, MHC-I expression and PD-L1 expression.  The colorectal ACS is characterized by a progressive loss of adaptive immune infiltrate and by the establishment of a progressively immune cold microenvironment.

O sistema imunitário tem um papel fundamental na iniciação e progressão do tumor. A interação entre tumores, quer hereditários quer esporádicos, e o sistema imunitário pode variar ao longo da progressão tumoral. Neste artigo fez-se uma análise das células imunitárias no microambiente tumoral, tal como de marcadores importantes para o sistema imunológico em displasias de baixo grau, alto grau e adenocarcinomas colo-retais.