The Netherlands Cancer Institute shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Not all cancer cells within a tumor are the same, we’ve known that for a while. But do those genetic differences actually affect how the immune system sees cancer cells? Turns out, they do.
Researchers from the Netherlands Cancer Institute, University College London, and The Francis Crick Institute found that certain subgroups of cancer cells within the same tumor can remain almost invisible to immune cells. And that difference isn’t caused by their surroundings it’s built into the DNA.
The team used organoids: small 3D cultures grown from tumors of three lung cancer patients. From different parts of each tumor, they grew about 25 mini-tumors and tested how each reacted to immune cells from the same patient.
Researcher Krijn Dijkstra: ‘It’s fascinating that tumors can contain both immune-sensitive and immune-resistant populations, living side by side. It gives us a new way of looking at tumors, as dynamic ecosystems.’
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