The immune system plays a dual role in cancer. It conveys protective immunity but also facilitates malignant progression, either by sculpting tumor immunogenicity or by creating a microenvironment that can stimulate tumor outgrowth or aid in a subsequent metastatic cascade. Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) embody this functional heterogeneity, although the nature of their responses in cancer has only recently begun to be unveiled. We provide an overview of recent insights into the role of ILCs in cancer. We also discuss how ILCs fit into the conceptual framework of cancer immunoediting, which integrates the dual role of the immune system in carcinogenesis. A broader understanding of their relevance in cancer is essential towards the design of successful therapeutic strategies.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.it.2019.03.004 | DOI Listing |
Int Immunol
January 2025
Department of Oncology, Nagasaki University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, 1-12-4, Sakamoto, Nagasaki, 852-8523, Japan.
Since the first approval of an immune-checkpoint inhibitor, we have witnessed the clinical success of cancer immunotherapy. Adoptive T-cell therapy with chimeric antigen-receptor T (CAR-T) cells has shown remarkable efficacy in hematological malignancies. Concurrently with these successes, the cancer immunoediting concept that refined the cancer immunosurveillance concept underpinned the scientific mechanism and reason for past failures, as well as recent breakthroughs in cancer immunotherapy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiomedicines
November 2024
Department of Radiation Oncology, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
Cancer immunobiology is one of the hot topics of discussion amongst researchers today, and immunotherapeutic modalities are among the selected few emerging approaches to cancer treatment that have exhibited a promising outlook. However, immunotherapy is not a new kid on the block; it has been around for centuries. The origin of cancer immunotherapy in modern medicine can be traced back to the initial reports of spontaneous regression of malignant tumors in some patients following an acute febrile infection, at the turn of the twentieth century.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNat Rev Immunol
January 2025
Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute for Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
Cancers can avoid immune-mediated elimination by acquiring traits that disrupt antitumour immunity. These mechanisms of immune evasion are selected and reinforced during tumour evolution under immune pressure. Some immunogenic subclones are effectively eliminated by antitumour T cell responses (a process known as immunoediting), which results in a clonally selected tumour.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurr Ther Res Clin Exp
June 2024
Division of Clinical Pharmacology, Department of Pediatrics, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, Utah.
Objectives: Natural killer (NK) cells are important immune system effector cells providing innate defenses against intracellular infections, including viral infections, immune surveillance, and cancer immunoediting. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate whether modified ultra-filtrated colostrum (UC) and hydrolyzed whey (W) products or their combinations with other natural products with reported immunomodulatory properties will stimulate NK cell cytotoxic activity by activation of granzyme B and IFN-γ production.
Methods: The ability of study products to stimulate the cytotoxic activity of human-purified CD56 NK cells and the production of granzyme B and IFN-γ by activated NK cells was evaluated in the cytotoxic assay.
Cancer Immunol Res
December 2024
Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
The term cancer immunoediting describes the dual role by which the immune system can suppress and promote tumour growth and is divided into three phases: elimination, equilibrium and escape. The role of NK cells has mainly been attributed to the elimination phase. Here we show that NK cells play a role in all three phases of cancer immunoediting.
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