Mokhtari Reza Bayat, Sambi Manpreet, Qorri Bessi, Baluch Narges, Ashayeri Neda, Kumar Sushil, Cheng Hai-Ling Margaret, Yeger Herman, Das Bikul, Szewczuk Myron R
Department of Biomedical and Molecular Sciences, Queen's University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada.
Department of Experimental Therapeutics, Thoreau Laboratory for Global Health, M2D2, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, MA 01852, USA.
Cancers (Basel). 2021 Jul 18;13(14):3596. doi: 10.3390/cancers13143596.
Cancer immunotherapy harnesses the immune system by targeting tumor cells that express antigens recognized by immune system cells, thus leading to tumor rejection. These tumor-associated antigens include tumor-specific shared antigens, differentiation antigens, protein products of mutated genes and rearrangements unique to tumor cells, overexpressed tissue-specific antigens, and exogenous viral proteins. However, the development of effective therapeutic approaches has proven difficult, mainly because these tumor antigens are shielded, and cells primarily express self-derived antigens. Despite innovative and notable advances in immunotherapy, challenges associated with variable patient response rates and efficacy on select tumors minimize the overall effectiveness of immunotherapy. Variations observed in response rates to immunotherapy are due to multiple factors, including adaptative resistance, competency, and a diversity of individual immune systems, including cancer stem cells in the tumor microenvironment, composition of the gut microbiota, and broad limitations of current immunotherapeutic approaches. New approaches are positioned to improve the immune response and increase the efficacy of immunotherapies, highlighting the challenges that the current global COVID-19 pandemic places on the present state of immunotherapy.
癌症免疫疗法通过靶向表达被免疫系统细胞识别的抗原的肿瘤细胞来利用免疫系统，从而导致肿瘤排斥。这些肿瘤相关抗原包括肿瘤特异性共享抗原、分化抗原、突变基因的蛋白质产物以及肿瘤细胞特有的重排、过表达的组织特异性抗原和外源性病毒蛋白。然而，事实证明开发有效的治疗方法很困难，主要是因为这些肿瘤抗原被屏蔽，而且细胞主要表达自身来源的抗原。尽管免疫疗法取得了创新和显著进展，但与患者反应率变化以及对特定肿瘤的疗效相关的挑战降低了免疫疗法的整体有效性。免疫疗法反应率的差异是由多种因素造成的，包括适应性抗性、能力以及个体免疫系统的多样性，包括肿瘤微环境中的癌症干细胞、肠道微生物群的组成以及当前免疫治疗方法的广泛局限性。新方法旨在改善免疫反应并提高免疫疗法的疗效，这凸显了当前全球新冠疫情给免疫疗法现状带来的挑战。
