Cancer Management and Research (Oct 2020)

Regulatory T Cells in Cancer Immunotherapy: Basic Research Outcomes and Clinical Directions

  • Zeng G,
  • Jin L,
  • Ying Q,
  • Chen H,
  • Thembinkosi MC,
  • Yang C,
  • Zhao J,
  • Ji H,
  • Lin S,
  • Peng R,
  • Zhang M,
  • Sun D

Journal volume & issue
Vol. Volume 12
pp. 10411 – 10421

Abstract

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Guoming Zeng,1,2,* Libo Jin,3,4,* Qinsi Ying,5 Haojie Chen,3 Murinda Charmaine Thembinkosi,3 Chunguang Yang,6 Jinlong Zhao,6 Hao Ji,3 Sue Lin,3 Renyi Peng,3 Maolan Zhang,1,3 Da Sun3 1Chongqing University of Science and Technology, Chongqing 401331, People’s Republic of China; 2China Metallurgical Construction Engineering Group Co., Ltd., Chongqing 400044, People’s Republic of China; 3Institute of Life Sciences, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou, Zhejiang 325035, People’s Republic of China; 4Biomedical Collaborative Innovation Center of Zhejiang Province & Engineering Laboratory of Zhejiang Province for Pharmaceutical Development of Growth Factors, Biomedical Collaborative Innovation Center of Wenzhou, Wenzhou, Zhejiang 325035, People’s Republic of China; 5Wenzhou Institute, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wenzhou, Zhejiang 325035, People’s Republic of China; 6Institute of Metal Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, Liaoning 110016, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Da SunInstitute of Life Sciences, Wenzhou University, Higher Educational Park, Wenzhou City 325035, Zhejiang Province, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail [email protected] ZhangChongqing University of Science and Technology, No. 19, Xijiao Branch Road, Jiulongpo District, Chongqing 400050, People’s Republic of ChinaEmail [email protected]: Cancer immunotherapy is a promising approach that has recently gained its importance in treating cancer. Despite various approaches of immunotherapies being used to target cancer cells, they are either not effective against all types of cancer or for all patients. Although efforts are being made to improve the cancer immunotherapy in all possible ways, one important hindrance that lowers the immune response to kill cancer cells is the infiltration of Regulatory T (Treg) cells into the tumor cells, favoring tumor progression, on one hand, and inhibiting the activation of T cells to respond to cancer cells, on the other hand. Therefore, new anti-cancer drugs and vaccines fail to show promising results against cancer. This is due to the infiltration of Treg cells into the tumor region and suppression of anti-cancer activity. Thus, regardless of various types of immunotherapies being practiced, understanding the mechanisms of how Treg cells favor tumor progression and inhibition of anti-cancer activity is worthwhile. Therefore, the review highlights the importance of Tregs cells and how depletion of Treg cells can pave the way to an effective immunotherapy by activating the immune responses against cancer.Keywords: cancer immunotherapy, Treg cells, FoxP3, targeting Treg cells, anti-cancer

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