The Nobel Prize awards in Medicine 2018 are based in part on a discovery made in 1987 in the laboratory of Pierre GOLSTEIN, director of research Inserm. It is indeed his team at the Centre d'Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy that for the first time identified the CTLA-4 protein, now targeted in certain cancer immunotherapy strategies.
A new member of the immunoglobulin superfamily: CTLA-4. Signed by Pierre Golstein and his team at the Centre d'Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy, this article published on July 16, 1987 in the journal Nature has been cited several hundred times in the scientific literature. This publication is also the origin of the works of James Allison rewarded this year by the Nobel Academy.
Pierre Golstein and his team were interested in the mechanisms of cell death induced by cells of the immune system, the cytotoxic T lymphocytes which have a toxic effect on corresponding target cells. The researchers "dissected" these cells, in search of the "molecular weapons" allowing them to eliminate cells potentially harmful to the body (infected cells, cancer ...). While this work led to the identification of the desired arsenal, they also allowed them to discover other molecules produced by lymphocytes, in particular ... CTLA-4.
It will be a few years before other researchers began to characterize this protein produced by the lymphocytes, and even more so before James Allison developed the therapeutic approach based on the inhibition of its activity.
CTLA-4 and cancer immunotherapy
If T cells are able to attack cells potentially harmful to the body, their activity is controlled by different "regulators". CTLA-4 is one of them: the protein slows down the antitumor activity of these immune cells. The idea, developed by James Allison, is to overcome this barrier by blocking the activity of CTLA-4 using specific antibodies.
Source :
A new member of the immunoglobulin superfamily-CTLA-4, Jean-François Brunet, François Denizot, Marie-Françoise Luciani, Magali Roux-Dosseto, Marie Suzan, Marie-Geneviève Mattei & Pierre Golstein. Nature, volume 328, pages 267–270, 1987
Contact :
Pierre GOLSTEIN,
Directeur de recherche Inserm
Equipe CIML : Mécanismes moléculaires des morts cellulaires
Centre d’immunologie de Marseille-Luminy
Unité 1104 Inserm/CNRS/Université Aix-Marseille,
+33 (0)4 91 26 94 68
e-mail
