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Review
. 2025 Jan 31;26(3):1235.
doi: 10.3390/ijms26031235.

Targeting the PD-1/PD-L1 Signaling Pathway for Cancer Therapy: Focus on Biomarkers

Areti Strati  1   2 , Christos Adamopoulos  2   3 , Ioannis Kotsantis  4 , Amanda Psyrri  4 , Evi Lianidou  1 , Athanasios G Papavassiliou  2
Affiliations
Review

Targeting the PD-1/PD-L1 Signaling Pathway for Cancer Therapy: Focus on Biomarkers

Areti Strati et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

The PD1/PD-L1 axis plays an important immunosuppressive role during the T-cell-mediated immune response, which is essential for the physiological homeostasis of the immune system. The biology of the immunological microenvironment is extremely complex and crucial for the development of treatment strategies for immunotherapy. Characterization of the immunological, genomic or transcriptomic landscape of cancer patients could allow discrimination between responders and non-responders to anti-PD-1/PD-L1 therapy. Immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy has shown remarkable efficacy in a variety of malignancies in landmark trials and has fundamentally changed cancer therapy. Current research focuses on strategies to maximize patient selection for therapy, clarify mechanisms of resistance, improve existing biomarkers, including PD-L1 expression and tumor mutational burden (TMB), and discover new biomarkers. In this review, we focus on the function of the PD-1/PD-L1 signaling pathway and discuss the immunological, genomic, epigenetic and transcriptomic landscape in cancer patients receiving anti-PD-1/PD-L1 therapy. Finally, we provide an overview of the clinical trials testing the efficacy of antibodies against PD-1/PD-L1.

Keywords: PD1/PD-L1; genomic landscape; immune checkpoint inhibitor; immunological landscape; transcriptomic landscape.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Immunological, genomic, epigenetic and transcriptomic landscape in cancer patients receiving anti-PD-1/PD-L1 therapy.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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