Trends in cancer最新文献

Chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR T) therapies are 'living drugs' in which T cells are genetically engineered to recognize and kill cancer cells. A major barrier to progress for CAR T targeting liquid and solid tumors is the poor persistence of these cells in vivo, which limits therapeutic efficacy. In this review, we summarize the field's current understanding of CAR T persistence, including clinical observations, patient correlatives and multiomics approaches, and emerging cell engineering and manufacturing strategies. We also propose a conceptual framework for CAR T persistence to guide interpretation of clinical data and the design of more potent and efficacious CAR T therapeutics.

Metastatic disease and therapy resistance pose significant challenges in the treatment of breast cancer. Recent studies by Rozalén et al. and Petroni et al. uncover a crucial role for IL-17A-producing γδT cells in liver metastasis and therapeutic resistance, offering new insights into the mechanisms underlying these processes.

T cell therapy has curative potential for many cancers. Despite impressive clinical efficacy in hematological malignancies, current T cell therapy still faces challenges related to sustaining responses, antigen escape, cytotoxicity, limited accessibility, and difficulties in treating solid tumors. The advent of CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) technologies provides a promising solution to these challenges. CRISPR technologies have grown from merely tools for gene knockout to sophisticated tools that can engineer cells at various levels of the genome, epigenome, and transcriptome. In this review we discuss recent technological advancements and how their application to T cells has the potential to steer the next generation of cellular therapy. We highlight emerging applications and current technological limitations that future tool development aims to overcome.

Tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy has emerged as a transformative approach in cancer immunotherapy, particularly following the recent US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of lifileucel for advanced melanoma. This review synthesizes current insights into the immune correlates and mechanisms underlying the efficacy of TIL therapy, highlighting the pivotal role of tumor immunogenicity, TIL functional states, and the tumor microenvironment (TME). Recent advances in single-cell profiling and biomarker discovery have enabled more precise patient selection and therapy optimization, while novel expansion protocols and engineered TILs are addressing resistance and broadening applicability to non-melanoma tumors. Collectively, these developments underscore the promise of next-generation TIL therapies to revolutionize treatment paradigms across a wider spectrum of solid cancers.

Human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-based immunotherapeutics, such as tebentafusp-tebn and afamitresgene autoleucel, have expanded the treatment options for HLA-A*02-positive patients with rare solid tumors such as uveal melanoma, synovial sarcoma, and myxoid liposarcoma. Unfortunately, many patients of European, Latino/Hispanic, African, Asian, and Native American ancestry who carry non-HLA-A*02 alleles remain largely ineligible for most current HLA-based immunotherapies. This comprehensive review introduces HLA allotype-driven cancer health disparities (HACHD) as an emerging research focus, and examines how past and current HLA-targeted immunotherapeutic strategies may have inadvertently contributed to cancer health disparities. We discuss several preclinical and clinical strategies, including the incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI), to address HACHD. Last, we emphasize the urgent need for further research to better understand HLA allotype heterogeneity and its influence on tumor immunopeptidome-driven immune responses. We anticipate that these strategies will accelerate the development and implementation of both personalized and broad-spectrum HLA-based immunotherapies, and will ultimately improve cancer treatment across genetically heterogeneous patient populations worldwide.

Cell-based therapies are promising for treating solid tumors, but challenges like tumor heterogeneity, antigen escape, and immunosuppressive microenvironments hinder their efficacy. Inducible suicide gene systems, often viewed solely as safety mechanisms, offer an underappreciated opportunity to enhance cellular therapies. These systems, triggered by various mechanisms (prodrugs, ligands, antibodies, or small molecules), enable controlled elimination of therapeutic cells. Recent developments demonstrate that this controlled cell death, especially when inducing immunogenic cell death (ICD), can kill even resistant tumor cells and reshape the tumor microenvironment (TME) from suppressive to stimulatory. This review highlights the transformative potential of integrating these suicide systems into cell therapies, overcoming key limitations, and amplifying antitumor responses while ensuring safety.

Glucose restriction generally limits tumor growth. Recently, Wu et al. reported that glucose restriction inhibits primary tumors but promotes lung metastasis by forming a macrophage-dominated, natural killer (NK) cell-deficient pre-metastatic niche (PMN). This finding provides a new perspective on understanding the dual role of glucose metabolism regulation in cancer treatment.

Pericytes play an important physiological role as guardians of vascular integrity. In cancer, however, pericytes undergo profound phenotypic changes which foster tumor progression. Emerging transcriptomics and functional data provide evidence for a shift from quiescent to highly proliferating, matrix-secreting pericytes which destabilize the vasculature and create immune deserts. However, due to their inherent plasticity, proliferative tumor pericytes can be 'coerced' to switch back into a more quiescent and contractile state, a process which underpins durable tumor vessel normalization. Therapeutically, pericyte phenotype switching can be induced by targeting oncogenic, metabolic, or microtubule signaling pathways which induce Rho kinase activity. Thus, harnessing pericyte plasticity provides unique opportunities to synergize targeted anticancer therapies with immunotherapy.

Eosinophils are increasingly recognized as important immune cells in the tumor microenvironment (TME). Recent technological advancements reveal their heterogeneity and complex context-dependent activities including the ability to elicit pro- or anti-tumorigenic effects. For instance, they can mediate cytotoxicity via highly eosinophil-specific granule proteins and reactive oxygen species, and contribute to antitumor immunity by interacting with various cells including T cells. Clinically, eosinophilia is often observed following various treatments including immunotherapy, where they may be beneficial for therapy. This Review explores eosinophil recruitment, immune interactions, therapeutic potential and methods for studying their activity. Understanding the role of eosinophils in the TME may lead to new therapeutic strategies and position them as targets or biomarkers in precision oncology.

The site of metastatic disease influences treatment response. A recent study in Cancer Cell by Cheng et al. revealed that bone metastases systemically impair immune function, abrogating immunotherapy response. Bone metastases led to osteopontin (OPN) production, which suppressed immunity in distal lesions. This highlights a novel cross-organ communication hindering antitumor immunity.