Dual Roles of Immune Cells and Their Factors in Cancer Development and Progression

International Journal on Biological Sciences, 2011

661 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Traditional wisdom holds that intact immune responses, such as immune surveillance or immunoediting, are required for preventing and inhibiting tumor development; but recent evidence has also indicated that unresolved immune responses, such as chronic inflammation, can promote the growth and progression of cancer. Within the immune system, cytotoxic CD8+ and CD4+ Th1 T cells, along with their characteristically produced cytokine IFN-γ, function as the major anti-tumor immune effector cells, whereas tumor associated macrophages (TAM) or myeloid-derived suppressive cells (MDSC) and their derived cytokines IL-6, TNF, IL-1β and IL-23 are generally recognized as dominant tumor-promoting forces. However, the roles played by Th17 cells, CD4+ CD25+ Foxp3+ regulatory T lymphocytes and immunoregulatory cytokines such as TGF-β in tumor development and survival remain elusive. These immune cells and the cellular factors produced from them, including both immunosuppressive and inflammatory cytokines, play dual roles in promoting or discouraging cancer development, and their ultimate role in cancer progression may rely heavily on the tumor microenvironment and the events leading to initial propagation of carcinogenesis.

Subfields: Immunology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b17007e2ebbec952f8fe56f456ee275fe5ef76d3

Citations in the corpus

• Immunomodulation by Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs): Mechanisms of Action of Living, Apoptotic, and Dead MSCs (2019, background): “Whilst MSCs can exhibit immunosuppressive or immuneenhancing properties depending on the presence or absence of certain inflammatory or anti-inflammatory stimuli, the tumorigenic potential of living MSCs poses a risk that cannot be neglected (26, 28, 106).”
• Immune evasion in cancer: Mechanistic basis and therapeutic strategies. (2015, positive): “cells curb cancer development via mechanisms commonly involving their production of 123 interferon (IFN)-γ and cytotoxins [3] but other factors such as chronic inflammation may 124”
• CD4⁺ follicular helper T cell infiltration predicts breast cancer survival. (2013, neutral): “However, this generalization comes with the caveat that variation exists among tumor types, with the so-called protumorigenic cells, such as CD4 + Th17, also shown to produce effective antitumor responses (20, 22, 23).”
• Chronic Inflammation and Cytokines in the Tumor Microenvironment (2014, background): “Depending on the tumormicroenvironment, cytokines canmodulate an antitumoral response, but during chronic inflammation, they can also induce cell transformation and malignancy, conditional on the balance of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines, their relative concentrations, cytokine receptor expres”