Deadly squamous cell carcinoma: New research may help us fight cancer

A new study was recently published in Nature Communications. Scientists reported the establishment of an initial characterization of the engineered microsatellite of squamous cell carcinoma (SSCC) cells expressing well-characterized mutations into CD8 T-cells which are precursors of the immune system. Since 2008 researchers have been developing detailed characterization of the expression of specific mutant CD8T-cells which are precursors of the immune system and are responsible for the development of immune tolerance to cancer and others such as leukemia.

SSCC is a highly aggressive type of squamous cell carcinoma of the skin and mucous membranes also called basal or primary squamous cell carcinoma featuring recurrent tumors. SSCC has shown a remarkable ability to adapt to treatment and is highly resistant to staged-3 therapy. SSCCs undergoing staged-3 therapy have been found to be involved in the development of brain metastases and have a poor response rate to other forms of immunotherapy such as PD-1PD-L1 and PD-L1 immunotherapy. A critical goal of our laboratory is to clarify immunologic functions of SCCs in the context of tumor adaptation and resistance to therapy explained Professor Shigehisa Honda from the Lab on Surgical Oncology and Haematological Oncology of the Department of Dermatology Osaka University School of Medicine and Laboratory Co. Kitaoka Japan.

For this study the researchers performed whole exome sequencing through a technique called high-overload sequencing (WES) on SSCCs from patients and MEMORY-SeqPCR (microsatellite-seqproteomic analysis) on mice expressing MC2-secretase gene which is known to drive the cell suicide (biomycotic cell death). Adoptive cell therapy is in use with SSCC in many irradiation-sensitive tumor types.

We investigated the expression of SCC genes using both middle-line and basal thermal generations of MC2-secretase-mutant mice. Using this approach we evaluated SCC gene expression in the basal or primary squamous cell cancers of SSCC patients using a combination of multisite sequencing WES-based proteomic analysis and therapeutic targeting strategies.

Shigehisa Honda Lab on Surgical Oncology and Haematology Department of Dermatology Osaka University School of Medicine.

Long-term studies are warranted to validate this characterization and achieve further insights into human SCC derived from tumor cell lines. Researchers will therefore attempt to interpret and validate the studied SCC genes. Our goal is to confirm the characterization and propagation of SCCs using MC2-secretase-mutant mouse transgenic mouse models and translate this result into SCU-based studies employing whole exome sequencing and microsatellite intron specific sequencing said Honda. Further we plan to strongly leverage advanced techniques formulated by our Nine Inch at the Japanese University of Agriculture and Research and Japanese during the current Research and Development Grant Programme for Mutant Cell Line Tumors (mostly generated by mice).