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ARTICLE | Translation in Brief

Bugging inflammation in lung cancer

How the lung microbiome highlights therapeutic avenues for lung cancer

February 21, 2019 7:01 PM UTC

An MIT study linking the lung microbiome to inflammation offers new therapeutic strategies for treating lung cancer and a mechanistic rationale for testing cytokine inhibitors in the disease, a tack Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS; SIX:NOVN) has already taken.

In a Cell paper last month, a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported mouse models of lung cancer with intact, pathogen-free lung microbiomes had higher lung tissue counts of γδ T cells that secreted inflammatory cytokines, such as IL-1β and IL-23 and IL-17A, than germ-free models or normal mice. Lung tissue samples from lung adenocarcinoma patients had higher counts of cytokine-secreting γδ T cells and higher levels of IL22RA1 than samples from healthy volunteers...