Asthma May Reduce Brain Tumor Risk

Researchers discovered that asthma causes the T cells to behave in a way that induces lung inflammation but prevents the growth of brain tumors.

Asthmatic people are less likely to develop brain tumors than others, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Asthma is a breathing disease in which the airways become narrowed and inflamed. Asthma which is bad for the airways may be good for the brain. A new study published in Nature Communications discovered a new approach to treat brain tumor using asthma.

About Brain Tumor
Brain tumors are the abnormal growth of brain cells that may be benign or metastatic. Brain tumors account for about 2.4% of all the tumor diagnosesandare most challenging due to their critically delicate location.

‘Reprogramming T cells in brain tumor patients to act more like T cells in asthma patients could be a new approach to treating brain tumors.’

“Of course, we’re not going to start inducing asthma in anyone; asthma can be a lethal disease. But what if we could trick the T cells into thinking they’re asthma T cells when they enter the brain, so they no longer support brain tumor formation and growth?”, said senior author David H. Gutmann, MD, PhD, the Donald O. Schnuck Family Professor of neurology.

The idea that people with inflammatory diseases, such as asthma or eczema, are less prone to developing brain tumors was first proposed more than 15 years ago, based on epidemiologic observations.

The reason why the two very different kinds of diseases would be linked was unknown, and some scientists questioned whether the association was real.

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Recent studies have started to reveal the crucial role that immune cells play in the development of brain tumors made to wonder whether immune cells could account for the association between asthma and brain tumors.

To know this association, researchers studied genetically modified mice carrying genetic changes related to a brain tumor.

Quiz on Brain Tumor
Brain tumor is a group of cells with abnormal growth in the brain. A primary brain tumor indicates the tumor that starts in the brain. A secondary tumor originates elsewhere in the body and then spreads to the brain.

They exposed groups of mice to irritants that induce asthma at age 4 weeks to 6 weeks and treated a control group with saltwater for comparison. Then, checked for a brain tumor at 3 months and 6 months of age. The mice with asthma did not form these brain tumors.

Further experiments revealed that inducing asthma in tumor-prone mice changes the behavior of their T cells. After the mice developed asthma, their T cells began secreting a protein called decorin.

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Decorin acts on the tissues that line the airways and exacerbates asthma symptoms but in the brain, it acts on immune cells known as microglia and blocks their activation. Activated microglia promote the growth and development of brain tumors.

The findings suggest that decorin blocking microglial activation may be a potentially useful therapeutic approach for brain tumors.

The next step is to investigate the role of eczema and other early-childhood infections because they both involve T cells.

As we understand this communication between T cells and the cells that promote brain tumors better, more opportunities to develop clever therapeutics to intervene will be in the process.

Source-Medindia