Overcoming immune evasion in T cell therapy of cancer: lessons from animal models.
Cancer antigen-specific cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) are the major effectors against cancer cells. However, large established tumors are usually not fully controlled by CTL for at least two reasons. First, large established tumors have immune suppressive networks that not only suppress CTL effector function but also permit tumor progression. Second, the genetic instability of cancer cells often results in the selection of antigenic variants by CTL, which allow cancer cells to escape destruction. Simply enhancing T cell capacity may not fully control large established tumors. Other measures, such as enhancing local costimulation, inhibiting angiogenesis and down-regulating functions of tumor associated myeloid cells should also be considered. In this paper we will review some of the progress from animal studies.
Liu
Jin-Qing
JQ
Department of Pathology and Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Ohio Sate University Medical Center, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
Bai
Xue-Feng
XF
D000818:Animals; D042822:Genomic Instability; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000235:genetics / Q000276:immunology / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy; D016176:T-Lymphocyte Subsets / Q000276:immunology*; D013602:T-Lymphocytes, Cytotoxic / Q000276:immunology*; D019139:Tumor Escape