ProSci’s top news picks for August 2016 include a study on T-cell activity inside tumor tissue, the potential effects of Zika virus in adults, and mRNA therapeutics.
T-cells Run Out of Energy When Fighting in Tumors
T-cells were shown to have decreased levels of oxidative metabolism and lower numbers of mitochondria after entering a tumor’s microenvironment. It was shown that T-cells that persisted through the tumor would exhibit a deficiency for PGC1α, which is critical in mitochondria biogenesis. Additionally, it was shown that T-cells overexpressing PGC1α were more active in the intratumoral microenvironment. The paper states that boosting T-cell expression of PGC1α could help keep T-cells active in tumor cells and be effective at fighting tumor growth. You can find the original paper here.
Zika Virus May Negatively Impact Adults as Well
Mouse studies observing Zika infection have shown that the virus has the potential to infect neural progenitor cells. In this study, 6 adult mice were infected with Zika virus. Infection lead to death of stem cells in both the hippocampus and the anterior forebrain, resulting in reduced proliferation. Data suggests that concern for the long term neural health could be a potential risk associated with Zika infection in all patients, young and old. Researchers have suggested monitoring both men and women who have suffered infection for long term analysis.
Spherical Nucleic Acids (SNA) May Be an Effective Way to Deliver Antisense siRNA
Many scientists use siRNAs in knockout experiments to study protein function, but using them as therapeutics has been more of a challenge since cells will often degrade the antisense nucleic acids before they perform their duty. The idea behind spherical nucleic acids (SNAs) is to conjugate these siRNAs to a lipid ball so that they are easily taken in by cells, but not so easily degraded by defensive enzymes. The idea has proved to be effective in stage 1 clinical trials for the treatment of psoriasis by targeting TNF- α, and may be useful for other therapeutics treating overexpression.
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