Inhibiting DNA Methylation Causes an Interferon Response in Cancer via dsRNA Including Endogenous Retroviruses

TL;DR: A computational model of epigenetic regulation of transcription is applied to provide a mechanistic understanding of the DNA (de-) methylation process in AML and improve DNA demethylation treatment strategies, suggesting that failure of remission originates in patient-specific deregulation.

TL;DR: The role of transposable elements (TEs) in aging, carcinogenesis, and other age-related diseases has been determined in this article , and the contribution of derepressed TEs to age-dependent effects in individual cells/tissues in different organisms was assessed.

TL;DR: It is shown that spiropyran can robustly detect elevated dsRNA levels when colorectal cancer cells are treated with 5-aza-2′-deoxycytidine, an FDA-approved DNA-demethylating agent used for chemotherapy, thus demonstrating the use of spirostyran for predicting responsiveness to the drug treatment.

TL;DR: It is suggested that inhibition of inflammation-induced DNA hypermethylation may be an effective strategy to reduce inflammation- induced tumorigenesis.

TL;DR: Preliminary clinical findings with blockers of additional immune-checkpoint proteins, such as programmed cell death protein 1 (PD1), indicate broad and diverse opportunities to enhance antitumour immunity with the potential to produce durable clinical responses.

TL;DR: Anti-PD-1 antibody produced objective responses in approximately one in four to one in five patients with non-small-cell lung cancer, melanoma, or renal-cell cancer; the adverse-event profile does not appear to preclude its use.

TL;DR: This study showed that mismatch-repair status predicted clinical benefit of immune checkpoint blockade with pembrolizumab, and high somatic mutation loads were associated with prolonged progression-free survival.

TL;DR: Antibody-mediated blockade of PD-L1 induced durable tumor regression and prolonged stabilization of disease in patients with advanced cancers, including non-small-cell lung cancer, melanoma, and renal-cell cancer.