Noncoding RNAs in Cancer Immunology
Cancer immunology is the study of interaction between cancer cells and immune system by the application of immunology principle and theory. With the recent approval of several new drugs targeting immune checkpoints in cancer, cancer immunology has become
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Noncoding RNAs in Cancer Immunology Qian Li and Qiang Liu
Abstract Cancer immunology is the study of interaction between cancer cells and immune system by the application of immunology principle and theory. With the recent approval of several new drugs targeting immune checkpoints in cancer, cancer immunology has become a very attractive field of research and is thought to be the new hope to conquer cancer. This chapter introduces the aberrant expression and function of noncoding RNAs, mainly microRNAs and long noncoding RNAs, in tumor-infiltrating immune cells, and their significance in tumor immunity. It also illustrates how noncoding RNAs are shuttled between tumor cells and immune cells in tumor microenvironments via exosomes or other microvesicles to modulate tumor immunity. Keywords Noncoding RNAs • Cancer immunology • Long noncoding RNAs • MicroRNAs
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Introduction History of Cancer Immunology
The history of cancer immunology went back to 1909 when Paul Ehrlich indicated that human natural immune system probably could distinguish tumor cells from normal cells and eliminated them. In 1943, it was shown that syngeneic mice immunized against tumors in the same inbred strain could reject a subsequent tumor challenge [1]. This was confirmed by many later studies that demonstrated the importance of cellular immunology as a mediator of allograft rejection as well as protection against the transfer of mouse tumors. At the end of 1950s, Burnet and Thomas
Q. Li • Q. Liu (*) Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-sen University, 107, Yanjiang West Road, Guangzhou 510120, China e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2016 E. Song (ed.), The Long and Short Non-coding RNAs in Cancer Biology, Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology 927, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-1498-7_9
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discovered “oncological immunosurveillance” that the immune system could pick up the malignancy and destroy it to suppress tumor development [2]. In 1970s, cancer immunology experienced a period of fast development when natural killer cells (NK cells) were recognized. A new concept—“immune evasion”—that the tumor would “actively use” or “edit” the pathway of immune system to avoid being hunted down by host immunity appeared. Since 1995, several preclinical studies successfully showed that dendritic cells (DCs), when appropriately activated and induced to present tumor-derived peptides, could effectively elicit tumor-specific T-cell response [3–5]. A number of following clinical trials in different cancer types also demonstrated the induction of antitumor immune responses with clinical responses in some cases [6–9]. With decades of hard work on cancer immunology, astonishing results were recently obtained in the clinical trials using immune checkpoint inhibitors and chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy. Cancer immunotherapy was selected as the top “Breakthrough of the Year” by American Association of Science in 2013 [10]. These exciting results inspired tremendous research int
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