Shaping Immune Responses in the Tumor Microenvironment of Ovarian Cancer

Abstract

Reciprocal signaling between immune cells and ovarian cancer cells in the tumor microenvironment can alter immune responses and regulate disease progression. These signaling events are regulated by multiple factors, including genetic and epigenetic alterations in both the ovarian cancer cells and immune cells, as well as cytokine pathways. Multiple immune cell types are recruited to the ovarian cancer tumor microenvironment, and new insights about the complexity of their interactions have emerged in recent years. The growing understanding of immune cell function in the ovarian cancer tumor microenvironment has important implications for biomarker discovery and therapeutic development. This review aims to describe the factors that shape the phenotypes of immune cells in the tumor microenvironment of ovarian cancer and how these changes impact disease progression and therapy.

Inexpensive Systemic Inflammatory Biomarkers in Ovarian Cancer: An Umbrella Systematic Review of 17 Prognostic Meta-Analyses

“…Remarkably, it was recently demonstrated that inflammation is a key contributor of ovarian cancer cell seeding ( 54 ), thus making this hallmark a hot target for further research to improve outcomes of this women’s cancer. Either primary or metastatic, the tumor microenvironment (TME) of EOC hosts an important number of immune cell types ( 55 ). These cells, mainly dendritic cells, regulatory T cells, myeloid-derived suppressor cells, and M2 macrophages, are well known to have an immunosuppressive phenotype on effective antitumor immune cells such as natural killers (NKs) and CD4 and CD8 lymphocytes ( 55 ).…”

“…Either primary or metastatic, the tumor microenvironment (TME) of EOC hosts an important number of immune cell types ( 55 ). These cells, mainly dendritic cells, regulatory T cells, myeloid-derived suppressor cells, and M2 macrophages, are well known to have an immunosuppressive phenotype on effective antitumor immune cells such as natural killers (NKs) and CD4 and CD8 lymphocytes ( 55 ). This immune contexture of EOC TME, particularly high-grade serous cancers, is characterized by a different enrichment of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) according to the density of the tumor inflammation status.…”

Construction of an Immune Cell Infiltration Score to Evaluate the Prognosis and Therapeutic Efficacy of Ovarian Cancer Patients

“…Early studies on immunotherapy in OC indicated its potential ability in acting as a compensating role apart from first-line treatment, including ICIs, cancer vaccines, and adoptive T-cell therapy ( 38 , 39 ). However, considering that only 10–20% of patients respond to immunotherapy (anti-PD1 and anti-CTLA-4 treatments) in a recent clinical trial, no drugs were officially approved in practice until now ( 40 , 41 ). OC was considered as an immunogenic tumor, and several non-spontaneous antitumor immune responses were detected in tumors.…”

Role of the Epigenetic Modifier JMJD6 in Tumor Development and Regulation of Immune Response

“…Increasing evidence suggests that epigenetic events and epigenetic genes are activated or suppressed in a variety of immune cells or immune responses, leading to the occurrence of different types of diseases ( 64 , 65 ). Data from The Human Protein Atlas indicated that JMJD6 is highly expressed in endogenous immune cells.…”