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
Comment
. 2018 Jul 9;6(1):67.
doi: 10.1186/s40425-018-0380-4.

A team effort: natural killer cells on the first leg of the tumor immunity relay race

Timothy B Fessenden  1 , Ellen Duong  2 , Stefani Spranger  3   4   5
Affiliations
Comment

A team effort: natural killer cells on the first leg of the tumor immunity relay race

Timothy B Fessenden et al. J Immunother Cancer. .

Abstract

Recent work by Böttcher and colleagues defines a new role for Natural Killer cells in the anti-tumor immune response, arriving early into the tumor microenvironment before passing the baton to DC1 dendritic cells. DC1 dendritic cells subsequently activate CD8+ T cells resulting in effective anti-tumor immunity. This work highlights the cooperative nature of anti-tumor immunity set in motion by Natural Killer cells, and immune evasion by tumors through their exclusion.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not Applicable

Consent for publication

Not applicable

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The tumor-immune relay race. Natural Killer (NK) cells are the first to arrive in the tumor microenvironment and recruit CD103+ dendritic cells (DC) through the secretion of chemokines. Activated DC then transport antigen from the tumor to the tumor-draining lymph node where they prime T cells (T). DC residence in tumors is also critical to drive effector T cell recruitment into the tumor microenvironment. Sensing and eradication of tumors is thus the result of collaboration of distinct cell types within the tumor microenvironment
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

References

    1. Spranger S. Mechanisms of tumor escape in the context of the T-cell-inflamed and the non-T-cell-inflamed tumor microenvironment. Int Immunol. 2016;28:383–391. doi: 10.1093/intimm/dxw014. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Tumeh PC, Harview CL, Yearley JH, Shintaku IP, Taylor EJM, Robert L, et al. PD-1 blockade induces responses by inhibiting adaptive immune resistance. Nature. 2014;515:568–571. doi: 10.1038/nature13954. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Engelhardt JJ, Boldajipour B, Beemiller P, Pandurangi P, Sorensen C, Werb Z, et al. Marginating dendritic cells of the tumor microenvironment cross-present tumor antigens and stably engage tumor-specific T cells. Cancer Cell. 2012;21:402–417. doi: 10.1016/j.ccr.2012.01.008. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Spranger S, Bao R, Gajewski TF. Melanoma-intrinsic β-catenin signalling prevents anti-tumour immunity. Nature. 2015;523:231–235. doi: 10.1038/nature14404. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Spranger S, Dai D, Horton B, Gajewski TF. Tumor-residing Batf3 dendritic cells are required for effector T cell trafficking and adoptive T cell therapy. Cancer Cell. 2017;31:711–723.e4. doi: 10.1016/j.ccell.2017.04.003. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types