Emerging Roles of Pseudogene RNAs in Antitumor and Antiviral Immunity

Tumor immunity and immunotherapy have become increasingly important in treatment strategies for a variety of malignancies including advanced triple negative breast cancer [1,2]. Although immunotherapy has been shown to be effective, patient response rates vary significantly and only a small fraction of patients respond favorably to the treatment [3]. The efficacy of cancer immunotherapy appears to depend on the host immune system recognizing and eliminating cancer cells [4]. Increasing evidence demonstrates a positive correlation between the presence of host antitumor immune responses and favorable patient outcomes for many cancers [5-8]. As an example, tumors with a high density of tumor-infiltrating lymphoid cells (TILs) in the tumor microenvironment are more likely to respond to immune checkpoint inhibitors, whereas those with low or no TILs are less likely to respond to the inhibitors [9-11]. Thus, interventions that render nonresponding tumors to become responding tumors and hence promote antitumor immunity bear tremendous therapeutic potential.