No abstract

We report the first case series of ICI-associated colitis successfully treated with fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), with reconstitution of the gut microbiome and a relative increase in the proportion of regulatory T cells (Tregs) within the colonic mucosa. These preliminary data provide evidence that modulation of the gut microbiome may abrogate ICI-associated colitis.

Multiplexed platforms for multiple epitope detection have emerged in the last years as very powerful tools to study tumor tissues. These revolutionary technologies provide important visual techniques for tumor examination in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded specimens to improve the understanding of the tumor microenvironment, promote new treatment discoveries, aid in cancer prevention, as well as allowing translational studies to be carried out. The aim of this review is to highlight the more recent methodologies that use multiplexed staining to study simultaneous protein identification in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tumor tissues for immune profiling, clinical research, and potential translational analysis. New multiplexed methodologies, which permit the identification of several proteins at the same time in one single tissue section, have been developed in recent years with the ability to study different cell populations, cells by cells, and their spatial distribution in different tumor specimens including whole sections, core needle biopsies, and tissue microarrays. Multiplexed technologies associated with image analysis software can be performed with a high-quality throughput assay to study cancer specimens and are important tools for new discoveries. The different multiplexed technologies described in this review have shown their utility in the study of cancer tissues and their advantages for translational research studies and application in cancer prevention and treatments.

Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) is often used to treat leucopenia. Other haematopoietins may increase the number of circulating leucocytes with higher efficiency, but GM-CSF has additional effects that may be far more relevant than its haematopoietic activity. GM-CSF induces differentiation, proliferation and activation of macrophages and dendritic cells which are necessary for the subsequent T helper cell type 1 and cytotoxic T lymphocyte activation. GM-CSF haematopoietic and non-haematopoietic functions have pro-inflammatory and immune regulatory potential to treat a variety of autoimmune diseases and tumours. On the other hand, GM-CSF deficiency leads to various immune dysfunctions and the current utilization of GM-CSF as haematopoietic factor might be an accurate but very incomplete indication for a cytokine with vast clinical potential.