Abstract
Microchimerism has generally been shown to protect against cancer (Gilmore et al. in Exp Hematol 36(9):1073–1077, 2008). The mechanism of how this occurs is an area of intense study, as it may lead to new cancer treatments. The leading theory is that microchimeric cells perform immune surveillance by directly fighting cancerous cells and that they also act as stem cells, repairing damaged tissue (Khosrotehrani et al. in JAMA 292:75–80, 2004). However, there is conflicting evidence to support this theory. Several small studies have found few microchimeric cells in tumor tissue (Gadi in Breast Cancer Res Treat 121(1):241–244, 2010; Cirello et al. in Int J Cancer 126:2874–2878, 2010), while another study contradicted these findings by showing microchimeric cells clustered around tumor tissue (O’Donoghue et al. in Reprod Biomed Online 16:382–390, 2008). To date, we have designed the largest and broadest study to investigate this question of whether microchimeric cells really do cluster at tumor tissue. We analyzed 245 samples from a broad range of cancer types. Using PCR for the male chromosome marker TSPY1, we identified only 12 out of 245 samples with microchimerism for a rate of 4.9% (95% confidence interval 2.2–7.6%). Five of these samples were confirmed using Y fluorescence in situ hybridization. This rate of 4.9% microchimerism is the lowest reported in any study. The low percentage of microchimerism observed in our broad study suggests that microchimeric cells do not invade tumors to fight off neoplasm.
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Acknowledgments
Dr. Dan Mayer for statistical review.
Funding
Funding was supplied through the Molecular Pathology Core Facility established through the COBRE CCRD award to Rhode Island Hospital (NIH/NCRR #P20RR017695 and NIH/NIGMS #P20GM103421).
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All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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The Lifespan Institutional Review Board granted approval for the project with a waiver of consent for tissue review. Tissue was provided by the COBRE Tissue Bank.
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Jolis, T.W., Brucker, B.M., Schorl, C. et al. Low microchimeric cell density in tumors suggests alternative antineoplastic mechanism. Med Oncol 34, 65 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12032-017-0921-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12032-017-0921-6