The Mechanisms Behind Immune Cell Evasion in MYC-amplified Cancers

Medema, Lisa (2022) The Mechanisms Behind Immune Cell Evasion in MYC-amplified Cancers. Bachelor's Thesis, Biology.

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Abstract

Recently, the oncogenic transcription factor MYC has been getting attention due to its properties to evade the immune system in cancers. In this essay, I will focus on MYC and its role in immune evasion in cancers. In non-cancer cells, MYC is a master gene expression regulator that promotes proliferation and multiple other cellular processes. MYC dimerizes with MAX to promote gene expression, while this complex can also interact with MIZ1 to repress expression. Treatment with ICI do not work on MYC-amplified cancers. It appears that MYC achieves immune cell evasion by repressing inflammatory genes and therefore interfering with the inflammatory signaling. Therefore, restoration of the inflammatory signaling is important for treatments of MYC-amplified cancers. Targets to achieve immune cell activation could be MIZ1 repression, the RAS pathway, degradation through FBXW7, and the MXD/MNT proteins. Also, direct inactivation of MYC could be investigated. Omomyc is the best-studied peptide-based MYC inhibitor so far. This compound interacts with the MYC network thereby preventing DNA binding and heterodimerization with MAX. From the data it is clear that MYC expression should be reduced in MYC-amplified tumors. In the future, more trials, including clinical trials, with omomyc should be done to investigate its potential as treatment for MYC-amplified cancers.

Item Type:	Thesis (Bachelor's Thesis)
Supervisor name:	Vugt, M.A.T.M. van
Degree programme:	Biology
Thesis type:	Bachelor's Thesis
Language:	English
Date Deposited:	16 May 2022 10:13
Last Modified:	16 May 2022 10:13
URI:	https://fse.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/27035

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