Graphical summary. Credit score: Cell Genomics (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.xgen.2025.101011
Understanding the interplay between immune cells and most cancers cells has necessary implications for most cancers immunotherapies, together with checkpoint inhibitor medicine and cell-based therapies, in addition to newer therapies like most cancers vaccines.
During the last decade, computational oncologist Benjamin Greenbaum, Ph.D., has tried to make clear how the immune system senses most cancers. A vital a part of Dr. Greenbaum’s analysis has centered on genetic patterns in most cancers cells that activate an individual’s personal immune system as most cancers evolves. This arm of the immune system acknowledges molecular patterns that sign a risk.
Though these patterns, referred to as “pathogen-associated molecular patterns” (PAMPs), come up within the affected person’s cells, they will resemble a overseas invader and provoke an immune response.
Repetitive DNA sequences, the place sure segments happen repeatedly, can provide rise to PAMPs. These repeated sequences are usually not lively, although they symbolize about half of the human genome. However once they do get activated, they will produce RNA molecules that resemble patterns discovered within the genetic code of viruses—a phenomenon referred to as “viral mimicry.”
The Greenbaum lab has been taking a deep dive into modeling viral mimicry, making an attempt to grasp what causes it, how the immune system responds to it, and the way this might form most cancers cells’ growth course of.
A software to quantify viral mimicry
Dr. Greenbaum’s lab—together with members Alexander Soloyov, Ph.D., Siyu Solar, Ph.D., and Stephen Martis, Ph.D.—in collaboration with a global crew of researchers, has developed a mathematical mannequin to quantify viral mimicry based mostly on strategies from statistical physics, machine studying, and the dynamics of evolution. This method enabled them to grasp the alerts that trigger sure viral mimics to be preserved within the genome, whereas different PAMPs are misplaced.
They revealed their outcomes on September 24, 2025 in Cell Genomics.
“Being able to quantify mimicry, to have good methods for assessing what turns it on or off, is going to help us understand how the innate immune system interacts with cells and impacts their evolution, including during cancer evolution,” Dr. Greenbaum says.
They discovered that particular courses of repetitive DNA components are notably good at mimicking viruses. This means that the mimicry might need a objective, corresponding to serving as a common protection in opposition to viral infections. These repetitive components can also assist defend creating cells in opposition to viral threats.
It is also potential that mimicry can sign mobile dysfunction—sending up a flare to the immune system as a result of there’s one thing unsuitable with a cell that might threaten an organism’s well-being.
“By being quantitative about this topic, we can provide a methodology for answering a lot of questions about how cancer and other cells get the attention of the innate immune system despite these sick cells essentially still being ‘self,'” Dr. Greenbaum says. “Where do these mimics come from, and why do cancer cells still have some of them if they result in increased attention from the immune system?”
For instance, in 2024, his lab reported in Immunity that their analysis software enabled them to realize perception into how pancreatic most cancers cells keep away from drawing assaults from immune cells by accommodating DNA repeats referred to as retrotransposons.
The mathematical method developed by Dr. Greenbaum and colleagues ought to lend itself to many discoveries about how innate immunity impacts most cancers growth and development.
“A better understanding of what activates the innate immune system can help us figure out how to improve immunotherapies,” Dr. Greenbaum says. “With cancer vaccines, it could help us learn how to make the vaccines more or less visible to the immune system so that we can better tune immune engagement.”
Transferring ahead, Dr. Greenbaum says, the precision that the analysis mannequin supplies will assist with the understanding of this necessary facet of human biology and with the event of latest sensible purposes.
Extra data:
Petr Šulc et al, Repeats mimic pathogen-associated patterns throughout an unlimited evolutionary panorama, Cell Genomics (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.xgen.2025.101011
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Memorial Sloan Kettering Most cancers Heart
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Quantifying viral mimicry: How repetitive DNA in most cancers cells triggers an immune response (2025, October 7)
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