Tackling Resistance to Cancer Immunotherapy: What Do We Know?

Abstract

Cancer treatment has evolved tremendously in the last few decades. Immunotherapy has been considered to be the forth pillar in cancer treatment in addition to conventional surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. Though immunotherapy has resulted in impressive response, it is generally limited to a small subset of patients. Understanding the mechanisms of resistance toward cancer immunotherapy may shed new light to counter that resistance. In this review, we highlighted and summarized two major hurdles (recognition and attack) of cancer elimination by the immune system. The mechanisms of failure of some available immunotherapy strategies were also described. Moreover, the significance role of immune compartment for various established cancer treatments were also elucidated in this review. Then, the mechanisms of combinatorial treatment of various conventional cancer treatment with immunotherapy were discussed. Finally, a strategy to improve immune cancer killing by characterizing cancer immune landscape, then devising treatment based on that cancer immune landscape was put forward.

Immune cells markers within local tumor microenvironment are associated with EBV oncoprotein in nasopharyngeal cancer

“…The CD8 marker from local primary nasopharyngeal cancer specimen, in another hand, was found to be positively and significantly related to tumor progressions in primary site. The CD8 cytotoxic T cells are implicated in cellular defense and have important role in cancer immunotherapy [14]. Various evidence in numerous solid human cancer has proved a beneficial role of CD8 cells within tumor microenvironment [21][22][23]29].…”

“…The FOXP3 marker from local primary nasopharyngeal cancer specimen was also positively related to tumor progressions in primary site. This FOXP3 marker was known to be a marker of T regulatory cells, an important T cells subset that work to suppress inflammation and has been implicated to promote cancer immune escape in multiple cancer [14,36]. There was evidence showing that EBNA1 might be associated with the induction of naïve T cells to differentiate into T regulatory cells in nasopharyngeal cancer [37].…”

“…Furthermore, we have shown that the density of tumor infiltrate within nasopharyngeal cancer tumor microenvironment was also associated with tumor progression [5]. Various data has indicated that the immune contexture within tumor microenvironment in most solid cancer has a great role predicting treatment outcomes [14][15][16][17][18]. For instance, higher density of infiltrating tumor T regulatory FOXP3 cells was shown to negatively affect prognosis in breast cancer [19].…”

Deciphering Driver of Nasopharyngeal Cancer Development

“…In nasopharyngeal cancer, a particular pattern of the tumour microenvironment has been shown to favour a better prognosis. Typically, a microenvironment with dense immune cells infiltrate was associated with a less aggressive tumour (20,21). Immune cells infiltrate, particularly CD8 cytotoxic T cells, are the main effector cells that attack cancer cells.…”

Electrospun Silk Fibroin/Polylactic-co-glycolic Acid/Black Phosphorus Nanosheets Nanofibrous Membrane with Photothermal Therapy Potential for Cancer

“…Immunotherapy is safe, effective and, at the same time, makes it impossible for the cancer cells to escape from the immune recognition mechanism, which eventually eliminates the cancer cells. However, the immune cells are unable to kill tumor cells in many cases, even if the tumor cell-specific antigens have been recognized by the T cells [ 5 , 6 , 7 ]. Photothermal therapy (PTT) is a combination of the local administration of photothermal agents and near-infrared laser irradiation (NIR), in which a nanoscale transducer converts photonic energy into heat, and then this locally released heat effectively kills the cancer cells.…”