this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
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T cells burn out just a few hours after encountering cancer tumors (arstechnica.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I mean it read to me like they were saying that cytotoxic T cells became permanently dysfunctional (the term “exhausted” is used in the paper this news article is about) when encountering cancer cells. I’m not sure I see why the title is incorrect.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

IMO the title is incorrect because the common interpretation of getting "burned out" is that of the same individuals of a population losing effectiveness after working hard. The article even likens the term "exhausted" the same interpretation of the phrase:

Altogether, our research suggests that T cells in tumors are not necessarily working hard and getting exhausted. Rather, they are blocked right from the start.

This same quote describes the truth of the phenomenon where it's not individuals getting "exhausted", but cellular signalling permanently altering the expression of T cells to make them less and less effective.

A more correct title would be something like:

Cancer makes every generation of T cells worse than the last

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Ahh, That makes sense.