Programmed death protein 1 (PD1) is a common immunosuppressive member on the surface of T cells and plays an imperative part in downregulating the immune system and advancing self-tolerance. Its ligand programmed cell death ligand 1 (PDL1) is overexpressed on the surface of malignant tumor cells, where it binds to PD1, inhibits the proliferation of PD1-positive cells, and participates in the immune evasion of tumors leading to treatment failure. The PD1/PDL1-based pathway is of great value in immunotherapy of cancer and has become an important immune checkpoint in recent years, so understanding the mechanism of PD1/PDL1 action is of great significance for combined immunotherapy and patient prognosis. The inhibitors of PD1/PDL1 have shown clinical efficacy in many tumors, for example, blockade of PD1 or PDL1 with specific antibodies enhances T cell responses and mediates antitumor activity. However, some patients are prone to develop drug resistance, resulting in poor treatment outcomes, which is rooted in the insensitivity of patients to targeted inhibitors. In this paper, we reviewed the mechanism and application of PD1/PDL1 checkpoint inhibitors in tumor immunotherapy. We hope that in the future, promising combination therapy regimens can be developed to allow immunotherapeutic tools to play an important role in tumor treatment. We also discuss the safety issues of immunotherapy and further reflect on the effectiveness of the treatment and the side effects it brings.

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COVID-19 pneumonia caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has ravaged the world, resulting in an alarming number of infections and deaths, and the number continues to increase. The pathogenesis caused by the novel coronavirus was found to be a disruption of the pro-inflammatory/anti-inflammatory response. Due to the lack of effective treatments, different strategies and treatment methods are still being researched, with the use of vaccines to make the body immune becoming the most effective means of prevention. Antiviral drugs and respiratory support are often used clinically as needed, but are not yet sufficient to alleviate the cytokine storm (CS) and systemic inflammatory response syndrome. How to neutralize the cytokine storm and inhibit excessive immune cell activation becomes the key to treating neocoronavirus pneumonia. Immunotherapy through the application of hormones and monoclonal antibodies can alleviate the immune imbalance, but the clinical effectiveness and side effects remain controversial. This article reviews the pathogenesis of neocoronavirus pneumonia and discusses the immunomodulatory therapies currently applied to COVID-19. We aim to give some conceptual thought to the prevention and immunotherapy of neocoronavirus pneumonia.

Triple-negative breast cancers are heterogeneous, poorly prognostic, and metastatic malignancies that result in a high risk of death for patients. Targeted therapy for triple-negative breast cancer has been extremely challenging due to the lack of expression of estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2. Clinical treatment regimens for triple-negative breast cancer are often based on paclitaxel and platinum drugs, but drug resistance and side effects from the drugs frequently lead to treatment failure, thus requiring the development of new therapeutic platforms. In recent years, research on traditional Chinese medicine in modulating the immune function of the body has shown that it has the potential to be an effective treatment option against triple-negative breast cancer. Active components of herbal medicines such as alkaloids, flavonoids, polyphenols, saponins, and polysaccharides have been shown to inhibit cancer cell proliferation and metastasis by activating inflammatory immune responses and can modulate tumor-related signaling pathways to further inhibit the invasion of triple-negative breast cancer. This paper reviews the immunomodulatory mechanisms of different herbal active ingredients against triple-negative breast cancer and provides an outlook on the challenges and directions of development for the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer with herbal active ingredients.

Cirrhosis is frequently the final stage of disease preceding the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and is one of the risk factors for HCC. Preventive surveillance for early HCC in patients with cirrhosis is advantageous for achieving early HCC prevention and diagnosis, thereby enhancing patient prognosis and reducing mortality. However, there is no highly sensitive diagnostic marker for the clinical surveillance of HCC in patients with cirrhosis, which significantly restricts its use in primary care for HCC. To increase the accuracy of illness diagnosis, the study of the effective and sensitive genetic biomarkers involved in HCC incidence is crucial. In this study, a set of 120 significantly differentially expressed genes (DEGs) was identified in the GSE121248 dataset. A protein–protein interaction (PPI) network was constructed among the DEGs, and Cytoscape was used to extract hub genes from the network. In TCGA database, the expression levels, correlation analysis, and predictive performance of hub genes were validated. In total, 15 hub genes showed increased expression, and their positive correlation ranged from 0.80 to 0.90, suggesting they may be involved in the same signaling pathway governing HBV-related HCC. The GSE10143, GSE25097, GSE54236, and GSE17548 datasets were used to investigate the expression pattern of these hub genes in the progression from cirrhosis to HCC. Using Cox regression analysis, a prediction model was then developed. The ROC curves, DCA, and calibration analysis demonstrated the superior disease prediction accuracy of this model. In addition, using proteomic analysis, we investigated whether these key hub genes interact with the HBV-encoded oncogene X protein (HBx), the oncogenic protein in HCC. We constructed stable HBx-expressing LO2-HBx and Huh-7-HBx cell lines. Co-immunoprecipitation coupled with mass spectrometry (Co-IP/MS) results demonstrated that CDK1, RRM2, ANLN, and HMMR interacted specifically with HBx in both cell models. Importantly, we investigated 15 potential key genes (CCNB1, CDK1, BUB1B, ECT2, RACGAP1, ANLN, PBK, TOP2A, ASPM, RRM2, NEK2, PRC1, SPP1, HMMR, and DTL) participating in the transformation process of HBV infection to HCC, of which 4 hub genes (CDK1, RRM2, ANLN, and HMMR) probably serve as potential oncogenic HBx downstream target molecules. All these findings of our study provided valuable research direction for the diagnostic gene detection of HBV-related HCC in primary care surveillance for HCC in patients with cirrhosis.