Lung cancer-intrinsic SOX2 expression mediates resistance to checkpoint blockade therapy by inducing Treg cell-dependent CD8+ T-cell exclusion.

Tumor cell-intrinsic signaling pathways can drastically affect the tumor immune microenvironment, promoting tumor progression and resistance to immunotherapy by excluding immune-cell populations from the tumor. Several tumor cell-intrinsic pathways have been reported to modulate myeloid-cell and T-cell infiltration creating "cold" tumors. However, clinical evidence suggests that excluding cytotoxic T cells from the tumor core also mediates immune evasion.