Researchers have discovered a powerful tumour-fighting agent in a protein usually involved in routine housekeeping chores inside the cell. The protein, known as a "chaperone", folds other proteins into their working shapes after they are assembled in the cell.
The Duke University Medical Centre scientists have found that it can also stimulate the immune system to destroy skin and thymus cancer cells.
Writing in the Journal of Cell Science and in the Journal of Immunology, the researchers explained that if released from the cell due to inflammation or tissue trauma the chaperones alert two types of immune system defenders which in turn call in the killer T cells. They believe this process might in time offer a new way to attack cancers, which are usually invisible to the body's immune system.