Minnesota - May 2012 Archives

ROCHESTER, Minn. — May 9, 2012.  Rather than stimulating immune cells to more effectively battle cancerous tumors, treatment with the protein interleukin-12 (IL-12) has the opposite effect, driving these intracellular fighters to exhaustion, a Mayo Clinic study has found. The findings appear in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The study helps explain the negative results of clinical trials testing the treatment's ability to ramp up the body's natural immune response to destroy cancer cells. The study also demonstrates that the same "T cell exhaustion" that plagues specialized immune cells during chronic viral infections also affects cells fighting long bouts of cancer. MULTIMEDIA ALERT:: Video of interview excerpts is available on the Mayo Clinic News Network. The results suggest a change in therapeutic tactics for lymphomas and other cancers by dampening, rather than fueling, the effects of cell-signaling molecules such as IL-12. The study focused on a type of cancer called Follicular B-cell non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (FL), the second most frequent type of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Previously, senior author Stephen Ansell, M.D., Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic hematologist, had shown that tumors biopsied from patients with FL and other similar cancers are a 50-50 mixture of cancer cells and immune cells. Although those immune cells are genetically programmed to kill cancer, instead, they seemed content to cohabitate with their deadly neighbors. Dr. Ansell wondered if a phenomenon known as T cell exhaustion may be the cause. The study findings suggest it is. "It is like beating a dead horse," says Dr. Ansell. "Our study suggests that many immunotherapy approaches are futile, because these cells are already past the point where they can do their job of targeting and killing malignant cells. Before we can stimulate the immune system, we have to reverse this state of exhaustion so the body's T cells can get back to work." T cell exhaustion was discovered a few years ago in the context of chronic viral infections such as cytomegalovirus (CMV), hepatitis and HIV. Researchers found that constant unrelenting combat with these viruses caused a key contingent of the immune response, known as T cells, to wear out. Even when artificially stimulated, these exhausted cells were unable to proliferate, recruit other members of the immune army, or kill enemy cells. In addition, these T cells began to carry cellular marks of exhaustion, most notably the cell surface proteins PD1 and Tim-3. In this study, Dr. Ansell and his colleagues tested whether exposing isolated human T cells to IL-12 would induce T cell exhaustion. They found that treatment with IL-12 brought the Tim-3 marker of exhaustion to the cell surface. When they tried experimentally to stimulate those immune cells into action, they discovered that the T cells couldn't proliferate and couldn't make the immune system signaling molecules known as cytokines.

ROCHESTER, Minn. — May 4, 2012.  A suicide study will be among the research presented by Mayo Clinic psychiatry and psychology experts at the American ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — May 4, 2012.  Mayo Clinic and University of Oregon researchers have confirmed that a genetic factor called a repeating trinucleotide is a strong predictor of an individual's risk of developing the eye condition Fuchs' dystrophy. The findings were being presented today at the annual conference of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology in Orlando, Fla. Fuchs' dystrophy is an eye condition that occurs when the cells at the back of the cornea deteriorate, causing fluid buildup resulting in swelling and cloudy vision. Fuchs' can be inherited. Until recently, the cause for most cases was unknown, but Mayo researchers showed a variation in the gene for transcription factor 4 (TCF4) was a major cause of Fuchs'. The findings are based on an initial genome-wide association study that revealed a link between Fuchs' dystrophy and the TCF4 gene. Mayo researchers further defined the association with Fuchs' to be due to unusually long segments of repeated DNA nucleotides in the gene. In this case, three nucleotide residues (aka trinucleotide) repeat more than 40 times, some as high as several thousand repeats. "Those long repeats of trinucleotides cause havoc, impacting the coding of the TCF4 protein," says lead researcher Keith Baratz, M.D., a Mayo Clinic ophthalmologist who will present at the conference. Characteristics of trinucleotide repeat diseases include later onset of the condition and progressive degeneration.

ROCHESTER, Minn. — May 3, 2012.  Mayo Clinic's Mount Everest expedition is exploring heart problems, sleep apnea, muscle wasting, calorie burning and other health issues ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — May 2, 2012.  It turns out beauty really is skin deep. A hair follicle or skin specimen that doesn't look like much ...