Mechanisms of tumor-induced T cell immune suppression and therapeutics to counter those effects.

The theory of tumor immune surveillance states that the host immune system has means to recognize transformed cells and kills them to prevent growth and spreading of those cells. Nevertheless, cancer cells often survive and outgrow to form a tumor mass and metastasize to other tissues or organs. During the stage of immune evasion of tumor, various changes takes place both in the tumor cells and the tumor microenvironment to divert the anti-tumor immune responses by T cells and natural killer cells. Advances in the basic science in tumor immunology have led to development of many creative strategies to overcome the immune suppression imposed during tumor progression, a few of which have been approved for the treatment of cancer patients in the clinic. In the first part of this review, mechanisms of tumor-induced T cell immune suppression resulting in immune evasion of tumors will be discussed. In the second part, emerging methods to harness the immune responses against tumors will be introduced.