Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

The cells of our body express, on their surface, MHC I molecules. These MHC I molecules present small protein fragments, that we call peptides, to the immune system. Altogether, all the peptides presented by a cell represent its "ID card" that is scanned by our immune cells, which elicit immune responses to destroy any cell presenting abnormal peptides that are recognized as foreign. These foreign peptides are presented by cells infected by viruses or by cancer cells. It is however known that tumours are able to hide from the immune system: the goal of immunotherapy is does to stimulate immune cells in order to increase cancer cell recognition and destruction of the tumour. The goal of this project is thus to identify peptides presented on cancer cells that could be recognized by immune cells and could thus be used as targets for immunotherapies. We decided to focus on endogenous retroelements, which are viruses that integrated our DNA millions of years ago. These sequences are not dangerous, since normal cells inhibit their expression, but it is known that they are aberrantly expressed by cancer cells. Since they have a viral origin, they could be easily recognized as foreign by immune cells, which makes them promising targets for immunotherapies.