New understanding of how cancer evades normal immune responses has paved the way for groundbreaking immunotherapies.

A recent study by Tyagi et al. from Hwa Lab in the current issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine provides novel insights into platelet-mediated immunosuppression in cancer.

The authors demonstrate that platelets from advanced-stage lung cancer (NSCLC) patients are reprogrammed, leading to increased expression and release of a platelet-specific protein TLT-1 (Trem like Transcript -1).

Using mice and human assays, the authors identify a platelet TLT-1–mediated immunoregulatory mechanism that drives CD8 T cell suppression. The study reveals a direct interaction between platelet-derived TLT-1 and CD3ε, present on the T cell surface, as the underlying mechanism.

Interestingly, the elevated platelet TLT-1 expression correlated negatively with lung cancer patient survival, emphasising the clinical significance of the study. Overall, the authors delineate a previously unexplored platelet-T cell crosstalk mechanism which could be important in several human diseases where T cells play a role.

Learn more in “Platelet-derived TLT-1 promotes tumour progression by suppressing CD8+ T cells.”

Source: Yale