L3: Oncoimmunology

Question 1

What is anergy?

Answer 1

absence of the normal immune response to a particular antigen

Question 2

What is apoptosis?

Answer 2

A type of cell death in which a series of molecular steps in a cell lead to its death

Question 3

What is effector function?

Answer 3

the interaction of an armed effector T cell with a target cell displaying specific antigen

Question 4

What is cell arrest?

Answer 4

Cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen 4 (CTLA-4) is upregulated in activated T cells and its binding to CD80/86

Question 5

2 Antigen Presenting Cells (APC)?

Answer 5

Dendritic cells (from bone marrow, typically in the skin)
Macrophages (large, typically in connective tissues and bloodstream)

Question 6

1 signal of T cell activation

Answer 6

Macrophages digest pathogen and collect information
attaches to Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC)

Cytotoxic T cells (CTL) recognize MHC class 1
Helper T cells (Th) - MHC class 2
antigen-MHC complex -> surface of the cell

Th: T cell receptor (TCR) = MHC II antigen complex

Question 7

2 signal of T cell activation

Answer 7

co-stimulation: CTLs and Ths require secondary signals

Th: CD28 receptor (on CD 4+ Th cells) binds with B7 protein (on the surface of APC) [ensures that T-cells are only activated by pathogenic APC)

lack of this binding results T cell death

Question 8

What is antitumor immune response?

Answer 8

Monoclonal antibodies that bind to CTLA-4 can block the interaction (CTLA-4 = CD 28) and inhibit the negative regulatory signaling

Question 9

What is the function of PD-1?

Answer 9

T cells express PD1 only after activation when it functions to limit the effector phase of T cell differentiation

Question 10

How does cancer vaccine work?

Answer 10

Neontigens: activate patients’ own T-cells

Question 11

Adaptive T-cell transfer

Answer 11

extract T-cells
grow in lab
educated to recognize cancer/modified to become much stronger
transfer back into patient

Question 12

stimulating factors

Answer 12

cytokines - stimulating proteins (interleukens 2,7,12,15)
cause T-cells to significantly multiply and get stronger

Question 13

Agonist antibodies

Answer 13

Anti-OX40
Anti-GITR
Anti-41BB
enhance T-cells to overwhelm the cancer

Question 14

Checkpoint inhibitors

Answer 14

antibodies to neutralize the inhibitory factors and cytokines (anti-IL10, anti-TGF beta, IDO inhibitors)

CTLA-4
PD1

Question 15

What are Chimeric antigen receptor T cells?

Answer 15

T cells that have been genetically engineered to produce an artificial T cell receptor for use in immunotherapy