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Among the main promising systems to triggering therapeutic antitumor immunity is the blockade of immune checkpoints. Immune checkpoint pathways regulate the control and eradication of infections, malignancies, and resistance against a host of autoantigens. Initiation point of the immune response is T cells, which have a critical role in this pathway. As several immune checkpoints are initiated by ligand–receptor interactions, they can be freely blocked by antibodies or modulated by recombinant forms of ligands or receptors. Antibodies against cytotoxic T‐lymphocyte‐associated antigen 4 (CTLA‐4) were the first immunotherapeutics that achieved the US Food and Drug Administration approval. Preliminary clinical results with the blockers of additional immune checkpoint proteins, such as programmed cell death protein 1 (PD‐1) indicate extensive and different chances to boost antitumor immunity with the objective of conferring permanent clinical effects. This study provides an overview of the immune checkpoint pathways, including CTLA‐4, PD‐1, lymphocyte activation gene 3, T‐cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain 3, B7‐H3, and diacylglycerol kinase α and implications of their inhibition in the cancer therapy.

The selective and efficient drug delivery to tumor cells can remarkably improve different cancer therapeutic approaches. There are several nanoparticles (NPs) which can act as a potent drug carrier for cancer therapy. However, the specific drug delivery to cancer cells is an important issue which should be considered before designing new NPs for in vivo application. It has been shown that cancer cells over-express folate receptor (FR) in order to improve their growth. As normal cells express a significantly lower levels of FR compared to tumor cells, it seems that folate molecules can be used as potent targeting moieties in different nanocarrier-based therapeutic approaches. Moreover, there is evidence which implies folate-conjugated NPs can selectively deliver anti-tumor drugs into cancer cells both in vitro and in vivo. In this review, we will discuss about the efficiency of different folate-conjugated NPs in cancer therapy.

microRNAs (miRNAs) are known as a large group of short noncoding RNAs, which structurally consist of 19–22 nucleotides in length and functionally act as one of the main regulators of gene expression in important biological and physiological contexts like cell growth, apoptosis, proliferation, differentiation, movement (cell motility), and angiogenesis as well as disease formation and progression importantly in cancer cell invasion, migration, and metastasis. Among these notable tiny molecules, many studies recently presented the important role of the miR‐193 family comprising miR‐193a‐3p, miR‐193a‐5p, miR‐193b‐3p, and miR‐193b‐5p in health and disease biological processes by interaction with special targeting and signaling, which mainly contribute as a tumor suppressor. Therefore, in the present paper, we review the functional role of this miRNA family in both health and disease conditions focusing on various tumor developments, diagnoses, prognoses, and treatment.

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The use of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-modified T cells is a promising approach for cancer immunotherapy. These genetically modified receptors contain an antigen-binding moiety, a hinge region, a transmembrane domain, and an intracellular costimulatory domain resulting in T-cell activation subsequent to antigen binding. Optimal tumor removal through CAR-modified T cells requires suitable target antigen selection, co-stimulatory signaling domain, and the ability of CAR T cells to traffic, persist, and retain antitumor function after adoptive transfer. There are several elements which can improve antitumor function of CAR T cells, including signaling, conditioning chemotherapy and irradiation, tumor burden of the disease, T-cell phenotype, and supplementary cytokine usage. This review outlines four generations of CAR. The pre-clinical and clinical studies showed that this technique has a great potential for treatment of solid and hematological malignancies. The main purpose of the current review is to focus on the pre-clinical and clinical developments of CAR-based immunotherapy.