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ARTICLE | Translation in Brief

Channel for T cell invasion

How KCa3.1 channel activation could reverse the migration effects of adenosine signaling

May 24, 2018 4:44 PM UTC

University of Cincinnati researchers have found that increasing potassium flux through the KCa3.1 channel could boost CD8+ T cell migration into the tumor microenvironment, raising the prospect that this could present a new mechanism to increase the efficacy of cancer immunotherapies in adenosine-rich tumors.

In a Science Signaling paper last month, Laura Conforti and colleagues at the University of Cincinnati showed that in response to adenosine signaling, CD8+ T cells from patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (SCCHN) decreased activity of the potassium channel KCa3.1 (KCNN4), and impaired the cells’ directed movement toward chemokine CXC motif ligand 12 (CXCL12; SDF-1), a chemotactic molecule that is overexpressed in SCCHN and other cancers. Conforti is a professor of nephrology at the University of Cincinnati...