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Harnessing Natural Killer Cells in Cancer Immunotherapy: A Review of Mechanisms and Novel Therapies

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Cancer immunotherapy has mostly focused on harnessing adaptive immunity to promote the destruction of neoplastic cells by B and T lymphocytes. We are now increasingly recognizing the important role of the innate immune system in the body’s response to neoplastic cells, providing an o...

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Autores principales: St-Pierre, Frederique, Bhatia, Shailender, Chandra, Sunandana
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8074597/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33924213
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cancers13081988
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author St-Pierre, Frederique
Bhatia, Shailender
Chandra, Sunandana
author_facet St-Pierre, Frederique
Bhatia, Shailender
Chandra, Sunandana
author_sort St-Pierre, Frederique
collection PubMed
description SIMPLE SUMMARY: Cancer immunotherapy has mostly focused on harnessing adaptive immunity to promote the destruction of neoplastic cells by B and T lymphocytes. We are now increasingly recognizing the important role of the innate immune system in the body’s response to neoplastic cells, providing an opportunity for the development of innovative cancer treatments. Specifically, emerging therapies targeting natural killer (NK) cells, which are integral to the innate immune response, are being investigated for the treatment of various tumor types. Successful efforts would pave the way for entirely new immunotherapeutic strategies in cancer treatment, with numerous possible targets. ABSTRACT: Natural killer (NK) cells are lymphocytes that are integral to the body’s innate immunity, resulting in a rapid immune response to stressed or infected cells in an antigen-independent manner. The innate immune system plays an important role in the recognition of tumor-derived stress-related factors and is critical to subsequent adaptive immune responses against tumor antigens. The aim of this review is to discuss mechanisms by which tumor cells evade NK cells and to outline strategies that harness NK cells for cancer immunotherapy. We discuss strategies to relieve the exhausted state of NK cells, recent therapies focused on targeting NK-cell-specific activating and inhibitory receptors, the use of cytokines IL-2 and IL-15 to stimulate autologous or allogeneic NK cells, and ongoing trials exploring the use of genetically modified NK cells and chimeric antigen-receptor-modified NK (CAR-NK) cells.
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spelling pubmed-80745972021-04-27 Harnessing Natural Killer Cells in Cancer Immunotherapy: A Review of Mechanisms and Novel Therapies St-Pierre, Frederique Bhatia, Shailender Chandra, Sunandana Cancers (Basel) Review SIMPLE SUMMARY: Cancer immunotherapy has mostly focused on harnessing adaptive immunity to promote the destruction of neoplastic cells by B and T lymphocytes. We are now increasingly recognizing the important role of the innate immune system in the body’s response to neoplastic cells, providing an opportunity for the development of innovative cancer treatments. Specifically, emerging therapies targeting natural killer (NK) cells, which are integral to the innate immune response, are being investigated for the treatment of various tumor types. Successful efforts would pave the way for entirely new immunotherapeutic strategies in cancer treatment, with numerous possible targets. ABSTRACT: Natural killer (NK) cells are lymphocytes that are integral to the body’s innate immunity, resulting in a rapid immune response to stressed or infected cells in an antigen-independent manner. The innate immune system plays an important role in the recognition of tumor-derived stress-related factors and is critical to subsequent adaptive immune responses against tumor antigens. The aim of this review is to discuss mechanisms by which tumor cells evade NK cells and to outline strategies that harness NK cells for cancer immunotherapy. We discuss strategies to relieve the exhausted state of NK cells, recent therapies focused on targeting NK-cell-specific activating and inhibitory receptors, the use of cytokines IL-2 and IL-15 to stimulate autologous or allogeneic NK cells, and ongoing trials exploring the use of genetically modified NK cells and chimeric antigen-receptor-modified NK (CAR-NK) cells. MDPI 2021-04-20 /pmc/articles/PMC8074597/ /pubmed/33924213 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cancers13081988 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
St-Pierre, Frederique
Bhatia, Shailender
Chandra, Sunandana
Harnessing Natural Killer Cells in Cancer Immunotherapy: A Review of Mechanisms and Novel Therapies
title Harnessing Natural Killer Cells in Cancer Immunotherapy: A Review of Mechanisms and Novel Therapies
title_full Harnessing Natural Killer Cells in Cancer Immunotherapy: A Review of Mechanisms and Novel Therapies
title_fullStr Harnessing Natural Killer Cells in Cancer Immunotherapy: A Review of Mechanisms and Novel Therapies
title_full_unstemmed Harnessing Natural Killer Cells in Cancer Immunotherapy: A Review of Mechanisms and Novel Therapies
title_short Harnessing Natural Killer Cells in Cancer Immunotherapy: A Review of Mechanisms and Novel Therapies
title_sort harnessing natural killer cells in cancer immunotherapy: a review of mechanisms and novel therapies
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8074597/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33924213
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cancers13081988
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