Regulatory T Cells and Their Clinical Applications in Antitumor Immunotherapy

Abstract

Cancer is a potentially life-threatening disease characterized by the immortalization of tumor cells in the host. Immunotherapy has recently gained increasing interest among researchers due to its tremendous potential for preventing tumor progression and metastasis. Regulatory T cells (Tregs) are a subgroup of suppressive CD4+ T cells that play a vital role in the maintenance of host immune homeostasis. Treg deficiency can induce severe autoimmune, hypersensitivity, and auto-inflammatory disorders, among other diseases. Tregs are commonly enriched in a tumor microenvironment, and a greater number of immune-suppressive Tregs often indicates a poorer prognosis; therefore, there is renewed interest in the function of Tregs and in their clinical application in antitumor immunotherapy. Accumulating strategies that focus on the depletion of Tregs have appeared to be effective in antitumor immunity. It is expected that Treg-targeting strategies will provide great opportunities for improving antitumor efficiency in combination with other therapeutics (e.g., chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T)-based cell therapy or immune checkpoint blockading). Keywords: Regulatory T cells, Cancer, Immunotherapy