Prof. Lotem and Dr. Hajaj have discovered that two splice variants of the SLAMF6 receptor are found on human T Cells. While one form has a known antagonist role, the other form acts as an agonist that contributes to the anti-tumor response of T Cells.
They show that promoting mRNA splicing, resulting in an elevated expression of the agonistic form as opposed to the antagonistic one, improves human T-Cell capacity to inhibit human melanoma in mice.
This yin-yang relationship of SLAMF6 splice isoforms may represent a balancing mechanism that could be exploited to improve cancer immunotherapy.
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