Sugimura Ryohichi, Chao Yiming
Centre for Translational Stem Cell Biology, School of Biomedical Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Front Cell Dev Biol. 2022 May 13;10:803947. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2022.803947. eCollection 2022.
The tumor microenvironment encompasses various innate immune cells which regulate tumor progression. Exploiting innate immune cells is a new frontier of cancer immunotherapy. However, the classical surface markers for cell-type classification cannot always well-conclude the phenotype, which will further hinge our understanding. The innate immune cells include dendritic cells, monocytes/macrophages, natural killer cells, and innate lymphoid cells. They play important roles in tumor growth and survival, in some cases promoting cancer, in other cases negating cancer. The precise characterization of innate immune cells at the single-cell level will boost the potential of cancer immunotherapy. With the development of single-cell RNA sequencing technology, the transcriptome of each cell in the tumor microenvironment can be dissected at a single-cell level, which paves a way for a better understanding of the cell type and its functions. Here, we summarize the subtypes and functions of innate immune cells in the tumor microenvironment based on recent literature on single-cell technology. We provide updates on recent achievements and prospects for how to exploit novel functions of tumor-associated innate immune cells and target them for cancer immunotherapy.
肿瘤微环境包含多种调节肿瘤进展的固有免疫细胞。利用固有免疫细胞是癌症免疫治疗的一个新领域。然而，用于细胞类型分类的经典表面标志物并不总能很好地概括细胞表型，这将进一步影响我们的理解。固有免疫细胞包括树突状细胞、单核细胞/巨噬细胞、自然杀伤细胞和固有淋巴细胞。它们在肿瘤生长和存活中发挥重要作用，在某些情况下促进癌症，在其他情况下抑制癌症。在单细胞水平上对固有免疫细胞进行精确表征将提高癌症免疫治疗的潜力。随着单细胞RNA测序技术的发展，肿瘤微环境中每个细胞的转录组可以在单细胞水平上进行剖析，这为更好地理解细胞类型及其功能铺平了道路。在此，我们根据最近关于单细胞技术的文献，总结肿瘤微环境中固有免疫细胞的亚型和功能。我们提供了关于如何利用肿瘤相关固有免疫细胞的新功能并将其作为癌症免疫治疗靶点的最新成果和前景。
