National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 12(118), 2021
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Significance It has become clear that our immune system can significantly inhibit the growth of cancer cells, in a process that has been coined “cancer immunoediting.” Based on this model, if the programmed cell death (apoptosis) mediated through immunosurveillance processes is not successful, the tumor cells may enter an equilibrium phase where they are either maintained or “edited” immunologically, leading to populations of tumor variants in the escape phase. Microbial factors have been found to affect cancer immunoediting. In this study we have identified a central player in these processes, called the major vault protein (MVP). Binding of certain bacterial signaling molecules to MVP strongly modulates apoptotic signaling, provoking new ideas and avenues to understand human-bacterial relationships and fight cancer.