Synovial sarcoma (SS) is an aggressive cancer that disproportionately affects young adults. The ability to target immune checkpoints has contributed to the overall decline in predicted cancer mortality rates. However patients with SS have failed to derive benefit from this approach on clinical trials to date. This has been attributed to its less robust immune environment as compared with more immunotherapy responsive cancers. SS is one of several cancers that overexpresses cancer testis antigens CTAs). Leveraging this approach through vaccine-based approaches has similarly not proven fruitful. Engineered T-cells targeting the CTAs appear promising, but still yield responses in under half… Read More »
Synovial sarcoma is a deadly form of malignant soft tissue tumors, most commonly affecting children and young adults. Approximately all the patients bear a pathognomonic chromosomal translocation, t(X;18), which fuses the SS18 gene with SSX1, SSX2, or SSX4. The resulting SS18-SSX fusion oncoprotein has been proven to function as a central driver of synovial sarcoma. The known mechanisms of its action primarily depend on aberrant transcriptional regulation that involves both upregulation and downregulation of target gene expression. Over the past decade, it has become increasingly clear that chromatin modifying molecules and their catalyzed histone modifications play important functions in SS18-SSX-mediated… Read More »