A Central Sentry: Enhancing the Brain's Tumor Surveillance Ability
While the global medical community has made great strides in preventing and treating many types of cancers, brain cancers still remain extremely difficult to treat and almost impossible to survey using traditional medical equipment. As a result, the cancers’ functional invisibility makes them acutely deadly. The brain is extremely dense, complex, and well-protected from outside invaders. These defensive mechanisms include the skull, a collection of fluids that acts as a shock absorber, and other tissues packed tightly together to form a living barrier. Unfortunately, tumors, a cancerous cluster of tissues growing uncontrollably to form illness-inducing masses, are well-masked by these brain structures. Thus, it is especially challenging to peer into the brain (as one might look at the heart) and effectively identify, process, and treat brain tumors. In response, researchers at Yale University have now managed to both work around and employ the brain’s protective layers to specifically target otherwise-hidden tumors.
The immune system is the body’s defensive force, creating everything from general responses against infections like the common cold to highly specific attacks against threats like cancer. One critical piece of this nuanced system is lymph, a colorless liquid that carries infection-fighting white blood cells throughout the body using lymphatic networks. The central nervous system, specifically the brain, has its own network of lymph-filled tubes and vessels called the meningeal lymphatics system, which extends from the sinuses and into and around the brain. The meningeal lymphatic system is special in that it not only assists in mediating immune responses for invaders targeting the brain, but also ensures that the harmful byproducts of brain cell metabolism are consistently and expertly drained.
The immune system is the body’s defensive force, creating everything from general responses against infections like the common cold to highly specific attacks against threats like cancer. One critical piece of this nuanced system is lymph, a colorless liquid that carries infection-fighting white blood cells throughout the body using lymphatic networks. The central nervous system, specifically the brain, has its own network of lymph-filled tubes and vessels called the meningeal lymphatics system, which extends from the sinuses and into and around the brain. The meningeal lymphatic system is special in that it not only assists in mediating immune responses for invaders targeting the brain, but also ensures that the harmful byproducts of brain cell metabolism are consistently and expertly drained.
A scan of lymphocytes, which are the white blood cells being manipulated by researchers to fight off tumors.
Image Source: skeeze
By manipulating the meningeal lymphatics system into recognizing tumorous cells as invaders that must be destroyed, researchers have better enabled the brain to use its own unique defenses to wage an anti-cancer war. To do so, researchers increased the expression of a growth factor that directly affects the meningeal lymphatics system and promotes the creation and enhancement of T Cells, the frontline soldiers of the immune system. In this sense, the growth factor is a draft that recruits and trains T Cells to find and fight against brain tumors. This conflict typically results in the tumor becoming partially or completely destroyed. Furthermore, this immune response also prevents returned growth through a detailed plan-of-attack, an antitumor response that remembers how to best fight off a particular cancer type.
Overall, this novel process stops tumors in their tracks without chemically or surgically disturbing the brain. This is incredibly important, as employing less invasive and equally effective tumor treatments will see patients with a fraction of the side effects that come with current cancer care. By co-opting our own immune systems, curing brain cancer may one day become as simple as fighting the common cold!
Overall, this novel process stops tumors in their tracks without chemically or surgically disturbing the brain. This is incredibly important, as employing less invasive and equally effective tumor treatments will see patients with a fraction of the side effects that come with current cancer care. By co-opting our own immune systems, curing brain cancer may one day become as simple as fighting the common cold!
Featured Image Source: Miranda Knox
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