Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2011 Jul 18;3(3):2904-54.
doi: 10.3390/cancers3032904.

Immune suppression in tumors as a surmountable obstacle to clinical efficacy of cancer vaccines

Grégoire Wieërs  1 , Nathalie Demotte, Danièle Godelaine, Pierre Van der Bruggen
Affiliations

Immune suppression in tumors as a surmountable obstacle to clinical efficacy of cancer vaccines

Grégoire Wieërs et al. Cancers (Basel). .

Abstract

Human tumors are usually not spontaneously eliminated by the immune system and therapeutic vaccination of cancer patients with defined antigens is followed by tumor regressions only in a small minority of the patients. The poor vaccination effectiveness could be explained by an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. Because T cells that infiltrate tumor metastases have an impaired ability to lyse target cells or to secrete cytokine, many researchers are trying to decipher the underlying immunosuppressive mechanisms. We will review these here, in particular those considered as potential therapeutic targets. A special attention will be given to galectins, a family of carbohydrate binding proteins. These lectins have often been implicated in inflammation and cancer and may be useful targets for the development of new anti-cancer therapies.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Rosenberg S.A., Packard B.S., Aebersold P.M., Solomon D., Topalian S.L., Toy S.T., Simon P., Lotze M.T., Yang J.C., Seipp C.A., Simpson C., Carter C., Bock S., Schwartzentruber D., Wei J.P., White D.E. Use of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes and interleukin-2 in the immunotherapy of patients with metastatic melanoma. N. Engl. J. Med. 1988;319:1676–1680. - PubMed
    1. Dréno B., Nguyen J.M., Khammari A., Pandolfino M.-C., Tessier M.H., Bercegeay S., Cassidanus A., Lemarre P., Billaudel S., Labarrière N., Jotereau F. Randomized trial of adoptive transfer of melanoma tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes as adjuvant therapy for stage III melanoma. Cancer Immunol. Immunother. 2002;51:539–546. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Coulie P.G., Karanikas V., Lurquin C., Colau D., Connerotte T., Hanagiri T., Van Pel A., Lucas S., Godelaine D., Lonchay C., Marchand M., van Baren N., Boon T. Cytolytic T cell responses of cancer patients vaccinated with a MAGE antigen. Immunol. Rev. 2002;188:33–42. - PubMed
    1. Mazzocchi A., Belli F., Mascheroni L., Vegetti C., Parmiani G., Anichini A. Frequency of cytotoxic T lymphocyte precursors (CTLp) interacting with autologous tumor via the T-cell receptor: limiting dilution analysis of specific CTLp in peripheral blood and tumor-invaded lymph nodes of melanoma patients. Int. J. Cancer. 1994;58:330–339. - PubMed
    1. Coulie P.G., Somville M., Lehmann F., Hainaut P., Brasseur F., Devos R., Boon T. Precursor frequency analysis of human cytolytic T lymphocytes directed against autologous melanoma cells. Int. J. Cancer. 1992;50:289–297. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources