Department of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Second Affiliated Hospital, Institute of Respiratory Diseases, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, P.R. China.
Recent Pat Anticancer Drug Discov. 2014 May;9(2):241-8. doi: 10.2174/1574892808666131118232656.
Eosinophils play important roles in allergic diseases as well as during helminth infection. As multifunctional leukocytes, eosinophils have also been indicated in anti-cancer immunity. Published studies have suggested an association between allergic conditions and a trend of decreased risk in numerous malignances. Moreover, eosinophil infiltration in tumor tissue is considered an independent prognostic factor. Eosinophils are often recruited to tumor sites, where eosinophil granule proteins and cytokines are released upon activation, which in turn damage and kill tumor cells. In the last decade, a number of patents based on potential cancer therapy using eosinophilic cytokines have been awarded. In this article, we review the current findings on epidemiology, experimental models, clinical pathology, and molecular mechanisms involved in the response of eosinophils towards cancer. Moreover, we discuss promising targeted therapies with eosinophilic cytokines as a novel perspective to combat cancer.
嗜酸性粒细胞在过敏疾病以及寄生虫感染中发挥着重要作用。作为多功能白细胞，嗜酸性粒细胞也参与了抗肿瘤免疫。已发表的研究表明，过敏与多种恶性肿瘤的风险降低趋势之间存在关联。此外，肿瘤组织中的嗜酸性粒细胞浸润被认为是一个独立的预后因素。嗜酸性粒细胞常被募集到肿瘤部位，在那里，嗜酸性粒细胞颗粒蛋白和细胞因子被激活后释放，进而损伤和杀死肿瘤细胞。在过去的十年中，已经有许多基于使用嗜酸性细胞因子进行潜在癌症治疗的专利被授予。本文综述了嗜酸性粒细胞在癌症中的流行病学、实验模型、临床病理和分子机制的最新研究结果。此外，我们还讨论了以嗜酸性细胞因子为靶点的有前途的靶向治疗作为一种新的抗癌策略。
