Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Aug 15, 2023; 15(8): 1349-1365
Published online Aug 15, 2023. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v15.i8.1349
Potential of damage associated molecular patterns in synergising radiation and the immune response in oesophageal cancer
Noel E Donlon, Maria Davern, Andrew Sheppard, Fiona O'Connell, Brendan Moran, Timothy S Nugent, Aisling Heeran, James J Phelan, Anshul Bhardwaj, Christine Butler, Narayanasamy Ravi, Claire L Donohoe, Niamh Lynam-Lennon, Stephen Maher, John V Reynolds, Joanne Lysaght
Noel E Donlon, Maria Davern, Andrew Sheppard, Fiona O'Connell, Brendan Moran, Timothy S Nugent, Aisling Heeran, James J Phelan, Anshul Bhardwaj, Christine Butler, Narayanasamy Ravi, Claire L Donohoe, Niamh Lynam-Lennon, Stephen Maher, John V Reynolds, Joanne Lysaght, Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy Group, Department of Surgery, Trinity Translational Medicine Institute and Trinity St James’s Cancer Institute, Trinity College Dublin, St James’s Hospital, Dublin D08, Ireland
Author contributions: Donlon NE and Davern M contributed equally to writing and experimentation; all other authors contributed to sample acquisition and data collection; Reynolds JV and Lysaght J contributed to supervision.
Institutional review board statement: This body of work was ethically approved by the SJH/TUH Ethics Committee.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Noel E Donlon, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy Group, Department of Surgery, Trinity Translational Medicine Institute and Trinity St James’s Cancer Institute, Trinity College Dublin, St James’s Hospital, James's Street Dublin 8, Dublin D08, Ireland. donlonn@tcd.ie
Received: January 14, 2023
Peer-review started: January 14, 2023
First decision: March 14, 2023
Revised: March 29, 2023
Accepted: June 25, 2023
Article in press: June 25, 2023
Published online: August 15, 2023
Processing time: 207 Days and 18.8 Hours
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

The incidence of oesophageal adenocarcinoma (OAC) is increasing exponentially annually as a consequence of obesity. The current therapeutics remain chemo(radio)therapy with mixed responses. The purpose of this work is to determine baseline damage associated molecular pattern (DAMP) expression in OAC patients as well as the effects of chemo(radio)therapy on DAMP expression.

Research motivation

To identify new therapeutic strategies in OAC.

Research objectives

This study aims to interrogate OAC DAMP expression.

Research methods

Patient tumour and serum samples were assessed for DAMP expression as well as tumour cell lines to mimic the tumour microenvironment.

Research results

Conventional therapies increase DAMP expression.

Research conclusions

OAC is an immunogenic cancer and must be exploited to harness immune mediated anti tumour responses.

Research perspectives

This is the first study of its kind in esophageal cancer looking at the baseline expression of DAMPs which is viewed as a surrogate marker of immunogenicity. Furthermore, it looks at the effects of conventional therapies on the immunogenicity of OAC.