A new avenue to cure cancer by turning adaptive immune T cells to innate immune NK cells via reprogramming.
Thymocytes after T-lineage commitment develop in the T-cell pathway. However, in a recent study, Li et al. (2010) demonstrated that inducing to delete Bcl11b gene in these thymocytes, even in mature T cells turns these cells into natural killer (NK) cells during the culture. They called this conversion 'reprogramming', and the reprogrammed killer cells 'ITNK cells'. The ITNK cells possessed tumor-killer ability and did not indiscriminately kill normal cells. This exciting finding represents a major breakthrough towards curing cancer and identifies an important, novel transcription factor in the thymus development.
Su
Dong-Ming
DM
Department of Biomedical Research, University of Texas Health Science Center at Tyler, Tyler, TX 75708, USA. dong-ming.su@uthct.edu
Vankayalapati
Ramakrishna
R
D056704:Adaptive Immunity; D000818:Animals; D003602:Cytotoxicity, Immunologic; D006801:Humans; D007113:Immunity, Innate; D007167:Immunotherapy; D007694:Killer Cells, Natural / Q000166:cytology / Q000276:immunology*; D051379:Mice; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology* / Q000628:therapy*; D012097:Repressor Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000166:cytology / Q000276:immunology*; D025521:Tumor Suppressor Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology
C511143:Bcl11b protein, mouse; D012097:Repressor Proteins; D025521:Tumor Suppressor Proteins