Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) announced significant findings in the treatment of neuroblastoma, a cancer of the peripheral nervous system that usually occurs as a solid tumor in a child’s chest or abdomen. The study offers insights that could lead to new, personalized medicine approaches in immunotherapy treatment. The findings were published today in the journal Cancer Cell.
Neuroblastoma is the most common cancer in infants, accounting for a disproportionate share of pediatric cancer deaths. Currently, monoclonal antibody-based immunotherapy is the only Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved treatment for neuroblastoma. However, this type of immunotherapy can cause painful side effects, and patients often relapse. All these factors led researchers to seek new and innovative approaches to treating this disease and safely improve cure rates.
In this study, researchers used a multi-omics approach to analyze and identify potential new targets for immunotherapy, integrating proteomic, transcriptomic, and epigenomic data to pinpoint biologically relevant proteins on the surfaces of cancer cells that are visible to the immune system. Reviewing comprehensive data helps scientists understand how cells function and what goes wrong in diseases like cancer.
Based on their findings, the researchers prioritized the protein, Delta-like canonical notch ligand 1 (DLK1). They showed that high expression of DLK1 in cancer cells promotes tumor growth and discovered how neuroblastoma cells increase DLK1 levels. They also found that DLK1 is produced at a higher rate in many childhood and adult cancers.
„Our study demonstrates the power of an integrative multi-omics approach to identify immunotherapeutic targets,“ said senior author, Sharon J. Diskin, PhD, a member of the Center for Childhood Cancer Research and Department of Biomedical and Health Informatics at CHOP and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Source:
Hamilton et al. „A proteogenomic sufaceome study identifies DLK1 as an immunotherapeutic target in neuroblastoma.“ Cancer Cell. Online October 24, 2024. DOI:10.1016/j.ccell.2024.10.003.
