A New Means of Detecting Prostate Cancer?

Common Molecule Notifies Immune System of Prostate Cancer, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute article, contains the following paragraph (in blue):

Understanding how this protein, known as histone H4, signals the immune system to respond to malignant cells may help researchers refine immunotherapy strategies that harness the body's own immune system to fight tumors. Some types of immunotherapy are already being tested in patients, but many questions remain unanswered. In particular, researchers want to know if tumor cells display molecular signposts that tell the immune system, “I'm a cancer cell, destroy me.”

Since nuclear proteins like histone H4 are not generally located on cell surfaces T cells, which are key immunological weapons against harmful organisms, cancer and molecular evidence of them, would appear unlikely to recognize H4 as a sign of cancer. Recognition for T cells is a surface event; not a place where H4 is expected. Unraveling the mystery of why histone would be found on the surface of tumor cells is the next logical objective.