The causes of childhood cancer remain poorly understood. Unlike adults, children have had less time to accumulate DNA damage from environmental exposures and aging. Researchers in Norway may have identified a possible explanation involving the immune system. Their findings were published in the Frontiers in Immunology journal.
The researchers analyzed blood samples from 175 adult and pediatric cancer patients and compared them with samples from healthy individuals. They found unusually high levels of abnormal antibodies targeting proteins involved in DNA repair in children with cancer ages 2 to 19.
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To determine whether these antibodies emerged as a result of cancer or were present beforehand, the team examined archived blood samples from 59 healthy schoolchildren. About half later developed cancer, while the other half did not. The researchers found that children who subsequently developed cancer had these abnormal antibodies in their blood an average of six years before diagnosis. The group was small, however, and the finding does not establish that the antibodies caused the disease.
In laboratory experiments, the researchers also demonstrated that the antibodies could enter living cells and bind to proteins involved in DNA repair, potentially interfering with their function. If these proteins cannot repair DNA damage effectively, cells may accumulate changes that contribute to cancer development.
The study’s authors concluded that the findings offered a plausible mechanism through which cellular damage could be amplified, potentially leading to cancer.
The team is now investigating in laboratory-grown cells how the antibodies affect DNA repair. Its next steps include cloning antibody-producing white blood cells and testing the antibodies in mice to determine whether they can contribute to cancer development. Such experiments could provide further evidence for the hypothesis, but additional research would still be needed to establish the mechanism and its relevance to human cancer.