Protein LAG-3 is expected to predict which cancer patients will respond to immune checkpoint inhibitors

In recent years, immune-based cancer treatment methods have given doctors and patients a lot of hope

In a new study, researchers from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in the United States found that specific patterns or "signatures" of markers on the surface of immune cells in the blood may be the result of immune checkpoint immunotherapy.

This connection was found in a group of patients with metastatic melanoma and was validated in a second group of patients with metastatic bladder cancer, indicating that this potential biomarker may be widely applicable to various cancer patients

Big data, big conclusion

These authors had data to support the findings of this study

To unearth clues in the blood, these authors used a technique called flow cytometry

The statistical tools developed by Dr.

A prominent immunophenotype is a group of patients who express a protein called LAG-3 at high levels on the surface of multiple T cell subpopulations

LAG-3 as a target

LAG-3 (the full name is lymphocyte-activation gene 3) belongs to a family of molecules called immune checkpoints

One advantage of this study is that it uses both the "discovery group" and the "validation group"

Due to the large amount of data, these authors were also able to compare the patient’s LAG+ immunophenotype with other known response biomarkers--specifically, PD-L1 status and tumor mutation burden

Why good biomarkers are needed

Biomarkers are important in cancer for several reasons

The second reason is cost

Since these authors used patient blood samples to determine this biomarker, it presents a promising prospect that patients can evaluate this biomarker by simply drawing blood

What's the next step?

One limitation of this study is that it is retrospective, which means that the data being analyzed comes from blood samples collected and stored in the freezer many years ago

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Reference materials:

Ronglai Shen et al.