Progesterone Promotes an Immune-Privileged Microenvironment in Breast Cancer
Abstract
Our bodies have a built-in cancer prevention strategy: the immune system. Cells of this complex system are constantly surveying the body looking for abnormal cells. Even the smallest of cancers, composed of just a few abnormally growing cells, will release danger signals that can be recognized by the surveilling immune system. Once a tumor is recognized, activated immune cells destroy and clear the tumor cells. Although this process happens efficiently on a very regular basis, there are some cancer cells that will escape recognition by the immune system, subsequently developing into bona fide tumors. Our research aims to understand how these cancer cells hide from the immune system: what mechanisms do they use to downregulate these danger signals? Understanding how cancer cells turn these signals off is the first step towards designing drugs that prevent cancer cells from escaping the watchful eye of the immune system. In breast cancer, we propose that a hormone, progesterone, helps breast cancer cells hide from the immune system. Progesterone works by binding to a protein, the progesterone receptor, which is turn binds DNA and turns on genes involved in growth and survival. Work from our lab has shown that the progesterone receptor can turn off some of the danger signals the immune system relies upon to recognize early tumors. We propose that blocking the progesterone receptor, thereby alerting the immune system to the presence of these early, small breast tumors, could be a novel mechanism for preventing and treating breast cancer.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Dec 05, 2021
- Source ID
- W81XWH2110349
Entities
People
- Christy R Hagan
Organizations
- United States Army
- University of Kansas Medical Center