“This Is Big”: UCT Scientists Uncover How Tumours Hide From Immune System in Cancer Breakthrough
- A University of Cape Town research team has modelled the process by which tumours disguise themselves from the body's immune system
- The team discovered how a key protein called MUC1 is chemically altered in cancer cells, allowing tumours to evade detection
- The findings, published in Nature Communications, could pave the way for new cancer vaccines, biomarkers and targeted treatments
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A University of Cape Town research team has made a significant breakthrough in understanding how cancer evades the body's natural defences.
Professor Kevin Naidoo and his team at UCT's Scientific Computing Research Unit recently published findings in Nature Communications that reveal exactly how tumours manipulate a key protein to avoid detection by the immune system.
At the centre of the discovery is a protein called MUC1, which lines organs such as the colon and lungs. In a healthy body, MUC1 acts as a protective sentinel, wrapped in long chains of sugar molecules that shield cells from bacteria and viruses while communicating threats to the immune system.
In cancer, however, that protective coating is chemically altered. The long sugar chains are replaced with shorter, abnormal ones, effectively turning MUC1 from a shield into camouflage. The result is that immune cells can no longer recognise the tumour as a threat.
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How UCT cracked the cancer code
The team used a novel laboratory approach to recreate this transformation in a test-tube setting, mapping the exact molecular changes that allow cancer to "redecorate" MUC1. Using their own computational chemistry algorithms, they identified a specific location on the protein, known as the T13 site, where cancerous enzymes prefer to attach, triggering a surge in the markers associated with malignant tumours.
A key finding was where this change originates inside the cell. In healthy cells, the enzymes that build sugar chains operate in the Golgi apparatus, the cell's packaging centre. In tumour cells, those same enzymes relocate to the endoplasmic reticulum, the cell's factory floor, where the usual biological checks no longer apply.
The US National Cancer Institute has ranked MUC1 as the most accessible target for cancer treatment, given how widely it appears across different cancer types.
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From the lab to the treatment room
The research team is already working on the next phase: building computer models that link MUC1's altered sugar coating to the behaviour of immune cells, including how the changes trigger signals that tell tumours to grow and spread. The team is also comparing common forms of cancer in your chest area with more aggressive, currently untreatable types to determine whether the "sugar code" differs between them.
The ultimate goal is precision medicine that strips away cancer's sugar shield, allowing a patient's own immune system to finally identify and destroy tumour cells.
Read the original Daily Maverick article here.
South Africans responded with excitement and hope on the Daily Maverick Facebook page:
Sabine von Hase wrote:
"Praying that this finding is urgently followed up on and put to awesome results. People spend money flying to Mars, yet this disease should have been killed off long ago."
Joan Gemmell Budricks shared:
"Recall viewing an interview several months ago — in simple terminology — a volunteer cancer patient received the research trial testing freezing — results were successful — he was doing well at the time."
Thandazani Doc Johnson said:
"This is big!"
Melissa Williams added:
"Phenomenal!"
Karen Hurwitz commented:
"This will be amazing!!"
Patricia Dunlop wrote:
"Wonderful news!"
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Source: Briefly News
