研究人员发明了一种选择性杀死癌细胞的新方法——光免疫治疗法，新成果发表在11月在线出版的《自然—医学》期刊上。
尽管手术、放射性治疗和化学治疗是今天癌症治疗的主要方法，但研究人员们逐步成功开发出针对特定分子的更精确目标治疗法。Hisataka Kobayashi和同事将光免疫治疗法作为一种新工具添加到癌症治疗的方法中。这种方法将抗肿瘤抗体与一种对近红外光有反应的分子耦合。他们发现，当用近红外光照射小鼠肿瘤时，癌细胞选择性地死亡了。
尽管在此之前科学家们也研制过其他基于光的治疗方法，但Kobayashi和同事发现了一种重要的不同之处：除非与目标细胞结合在一起，改性抗体没有毒性。这种性能是新技术应用于临床的关键所在。(生物谷 Bioon.com)
doi:10.1038/nm.2554
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Cancer cell–selective in vivo near infrared photoimmunotherapy targeting specific membrane molecules
Makoto Mitsunaga, Mikako Ogawa, Nobuyuki Kosaka, Lauren T Rosenblum, Peter L Choyke & Hisataka Kobayashi
Three major modes of cancer therapy (surgery, radiation and chemotherapy) are the mainstay of modern oncologic therapy. To minimize the side effects of these therapies, molecular-targeted cancer therapies, including armed antibody therapy, have been developed with limited success. In this study, we have developed a new type of molecular-targeted cancer therapy, photoimmunotherapy (PIT), that uses a target-specific photosensitizer based on a near-infrared (NIR) phthalocyanine dye, IR700, conjugated to monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) targeting epidermal growth factor receptors. Cell death was induced immediately after irradiating mAb-IR700–bound target cells with NIR light. We observed in vivo tumor shrinkage after irradiation with NIR light in target cells expressing the epidermal growth factor receptor. The mAb-IR700 conjugates were most effective when bound to the cell membrane and produced no phototoxicity when not bound, suggesting a different mechanism for PIT as compared to conventional photodynamic therapies. Target-selective PIT enables treatment of cancer based on mAb binding to the cell membrane.
