Current progress in cancer immunotherapy based on natural killer cells

One of the most common diseases in the present era is cancer. The common treatment methods used to control cancer include surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. Despite progress in the treatment of cancers, there still is no definite therapeutic approach. Among the currently proposed strategies, immunotherapy is a new approach that can provide better outcomes compared with existing therapies. Employing natural killer (NK) cells is one of the means of immunotherapy. As innate lymphocytes, NK cells are capable of rapidly responding to cancer cells without being sensitized or restricted to the cognate antigen in advance, as compared to T cells that are tumor antigen-specific. Latest insights into the biology of NK cells have clarified the underlying molecular mechanisms of NK cell maturation and differentiation, as well as controlling their effector functions through the investigation of the ligands and receptors engaged in recognizing cancer cells by NK cells. Elucidating the fact that NK cells recognize cancer cells could similarly show the mechanism through which cancer cells possibly avoid NK cell-dependent immune surveillance. Additionally, the expectations for novel immunotherapies by targeting NK cells have increased through the latest clinical outcomes of T–cell-targeted cancer immunotherapy. For this emerging method, researchers are still attempting to develop protocols for conferring the best proliferation and expansion medium, activation pathways, utilization dosage, transferring methods, as well as reducing possible side effects in cancer therapy. This study reviews the NK cells, their proliferation and expansion methods, and their recent applications in cancer immunotherapy.     

High Resolution Melting Analysis for Evaluation of mir-612 (Rs12803915) Genetic Variant with Susceptibility to Pediatric Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Background:Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is a highly heterogeneous malignancy that accounts for nearly 75% of leukemias in children. While the exact mechanism of ALL is not fully understood, some genetic variants have been implicated as associated with ALL susceptibility. The association between some genetic variants in miRNA genes and ALL risk has been described previously. A previous study suggested that mir-612 rs12803915 G> A may be associated with pediatric ALL risk. High-resolution melting (HRM) analysis is a reliable method that can be applied for polymorphism detection.Methods:This retrospective study was performed on 100 B-ALL patients (52 males and 48 females; age 4.6 ± 3.2 years) and 105 age- and sex-matched healthy controls (48 males and 57 females; age 5.1 ± 3 years). We used HRM to identify mir-612 rs12803915 genotypes. Sanger sequencing was applied to validate the HRM results.Results:High resolution melting analysis was used to genotype the mir-612 rs12803915 polymorphism. We found no association between rs12803915 allele A and B-ALL risk in any inheritance models (p> 0.05).Conclusion:HRM is a suitable method to detect SNP rs12803915 in the mir-612 gene; however, we found no significant association between the rs12803915 polymorphism and ALL risk.Key Words: Childhood ALL, Hsa-mir-612, High-Resolution Melting (HRM), MicroRNA, Polymorphism     

Association study of rs10768683 and rs968857 polymorphisms with transfusion-dependent thalassemia (TDT) in a southern Iranian population

Previous studies reported that detection of polymorphisms inherited through paternal model could be potential markers for the Non-Invasive Prenatal Diagnosis (NIPD) of β-thalassemia. The aim of the current study was to find out the associations of rs10768683 and rs968857 with transfusion-dependent thalassemia (TDT) in a southern Iranian population. A total of 175 subjects were investigated, divided into patients with TDT as case group (n?=?75) and healthy people as control group (n?=?100). Genomic DNAs were extracted from peripheral blood using salting out procedure. Genotyping rs10768683 and rs968857 was carried out by ARMS-PCR, then statistical analyses were assessed using SPSS, and Medcalc ver. 18 software. Data showed that rs10768683 was statistically significant in co-dominant model of inheritance (P?=?0.025, OR?=?2.11 [1.08-4.15]) and genotype frequencies of CG among controls and cases were 0.68 and 0.80, respectively. However, according to genotype frequencies, there was no association between rs968857 and TDT among cases and healthy controls in any models of inheritance. In conclusion, the present study showed the association of rs10768683 with major β-thalassemia through ARMS-PCR technique.