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Review
. 2023 Jan 13;5(2):77-91.
doi: 10.1097/BS9.0000000000000149. eCollection 2023 Apr.

PD-L1: expression regulation

Yu-Jie Zhou  1 , Guoli Li  2   3   4 , Jiyin Wang  2   3   4 , Mengyuan Liu  1 , Zihan Wang  1 , Yu Song  5 , Xulong Zhang  1 , Xi Wang  1   2   3   4
Affiliations
Review

PD-L1: expression regulation

Yu-Jie Zhou et al. Blood Sci. .

Abstract

Programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1), expressed on the surface of tumor cells, can bind to programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) on T cells. The interaction of PD-1 and PD-L1 can inhibit T-cell responses by decreasing T-cell activity and accelerating their apoptosis. Various cancers express high levels of PD-L1 and exploit PD-L1/PD-1 signaling to evade T-cell immunity, and immunotherapies targeting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis have been shown to exert remarkable anti-tumor effects; however, not all tumor patients benefit from these therapies. Therefore, study of the mechanisms regulating PD-L1 expression are imperative. In this review, we explore regulation of PD-L1 expression in the contexts of gene transcription, signaling pathways, histone modification and remodeling, microRNAs, long noncoding RNAs, and post-translational modification. Current developments in studies of agents that block PD-L1 and correlations between immunotherapies targeting PD-1/PD-L1 and PD-L1 expression are also summarized. Our review will assist in understanding of PD-L1 expression regulation and discusses the implications of reported findings in cancer diagnosis and immunotherapy.

Keywords: Drug discovery; Epigenetics; Immune checkpoint blockage; Immunotherapy; PD-L1 expression.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The enhancement effect of antibodies targeting PD-1 and PD-L1 on T cells killing tumor cells. PD-1 = programmed cell death-1, PD-L1 = programmed death-ligand 1.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
The regulatory mechanism of PD-L1 expression. PD-L1 = programmed death-ligand 1.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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