The Y chromosome helps protect against cancer

The Y chromosome helps protect against cancer : When cancer cells and immune system cells lose their Y chromosomes , a phenomenon that happens quite commonly in males as cells age, the body is unable to fight the disease effectively, resulting in significantly reduced survival rates . The discovery, published in the journal Nature, is due to research coordinated by the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and could lead to more effective cancer therapies for men .

“Our work shows that if tumor cells lose the Y chromosome, it is very likely that immune cells will also lose it,” says Simon Knott, who coordinated the study with Dan Theodorescu, currently at the University of Arizona Cancer Center. “The simultaneous loss of the Y chromosome in both of these cell types,” continues Knott, “is related to hyper-aggressive tumor cells and a less efficient immune system : this situation determines the appearance of an aggressive tumor with a very poor prognosis.”

A high percentage of men lose the Y chromosome in at least some of their cells during their lifetime, so the finding could have implications for many patients. In particular, it could have major implications for those receiving CAR T-cell therapy , in which a person's immune cells are removed, modified in the lab to help fight cancer, and then reinfused: If the removed immune cells are missing the Y, researchers say they will be less effective, and so they should be tested for that before being reintroduced to the patient.