Cancer Immunotherapy Strategies and T Cell Response Mechanisms

Cancer immunotherapy harnesses the body’s immune system to recognise and eliminate malignant cells, with T lymphocytes at the frontline of anti‐tumour responses. Key strategies include immune checkpoint blockade, adoptive cell transfer, therapeutic vaccines and oncolytic viruses. Checkpoint inhibitors target regulatory receptors such as CTLA-4 and PD-1 to restore T cell activity against tumours, while adoptive transfer employs ex vivo-expanded or genetically modified T cells, including those bearing chimeric antigen receptors (CARs), to deliver potent and antigen-specific cytotoxicity. Advances in single-cell profiling and combination regimens are refining our understanding of T cell activation, exhaustion and memory formation within the tumour microenvironment, driving more effective and durable clinical outcomes across diverse malignancies.

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Cancer Immunotherapy Strategies and T Cell Response Mechanisms publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in cancer immunotherapy strategies and t cell response mechanisms across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Immune checkpoint: A regulatory pathway in T cells that maintains self-tolerance and modulates immune activation, often exploited by tumours to evade destruction.

Tumour microenvironment (TME): The complex milieu surrounding a tumour, comprising stromal cells, blood vessels, immune cells and extracellular matrix that influence tumour progression and therapy response.

Adoptive cell transfer (ACT): A therapeutic approach involving extraction, expansion or genetic modification of a patient’s immune cells before reinfusion to enhance anti-tumour immunity.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR): A synthetic receptor combining an antigen-binding domain with T cell signalling modules, engineered into T cells to target specific tumour antigens.

PD-1 and CTLA-4: Co-inhibitory receptors on T cells; blockade of these molecules lifts inhibitory signals and potentiates anti-tumour T cell activity.

References

1. Immune checkpoint therapy for solid tumours: clinical dilemmas and future trends. Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy (2023).
2. CTLA-4 and PD-1 Pathways. American Journal of Clinical Oncology (2016).
3. The history and advances in cancer immunotherapy: understanding the characteristics of tumor-infiltrating immune cells and their therapeutic implications. Cellular & Molecular Immunology (2020).
4. Novel immune checkpoint targets: moving beyond PD-1 and CTLA-4. Molecular Cancer (2019).
5. Cytotoxic CD8+ T cells in cancer and cancer immunotherapy. British Journal of Cancer (2020).
6. T-cell exhaustion in the tumor microenvironment. Cell Death & Disease (2015).