Enhancing the Efficacy of Anti-tumor Immunotherapy by Targeting Tcell Metabolism

摘要

Tumor immunotherapy has become the fourth major type of cancer therapy, being used alone or in combination with surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy. In recent years, immunotherapies, especially immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy and chimeric antigen receptor T-Cell (CAR-T), have achieved surprising curative effects in both preclinical studies and clinical practice. However, with the expansion of clinical cases and tumor types treated, the limitations of immunotherapy have gradually emerged. For example, the clinical positive response rate of ICB therapy is only 20%-30%, and is ineffective against or may even promote the progression and metastasis of certain types of tumors. CAR-T cells therapy is very effective against hematological tumors, but its application for treating solid tumors has encountered a bottleneck. Therefore, combination therapeutic strategies have emerged to overcome the drawbacks associated with the different treatments. At present, research on immunotherapy combined with radiotherapy, chemotherapy and targeted therapy is booming. Investigations about the metabolism of tumors and immune cells have become one of the hotspots in recent years. Regulating the metabolism of effector T cells in the tumor microenvironment represents an effective way to improve immunotherapy, resulting in the restoration or enhancement of the ability of effector T cells to produce an anti-tumor immune response. In this review, we discuss recent progress in this field, with an emphasis on the metabolic characteristics of tumor and immune cells, especially T cells in the tumor microenvironment. We also provide a snapshot of how T cell metabolic reprogramming can be regulated to restore or enhance the efficacy of tumor immunotherapy, as well as the challenges and solutions associated with this metabolic reprogramming.