NK Cells Are Never Alone: Crosstalk and Communication in Tumour Microenvironments

Overview

Journal Mol Cancer

Publisher Biomed Central

Specialties Molecular Biology
Oncology

Date 2023 Feb 16

PMID 36797782

Authors

Yongqiang Zhou

Lu Cheng

Lu Liu

Xun Li

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Immune escape is a hallmark of cancer. The dynamic and heterogeneous tumour microenvironment (TME) causes insufficient infiltration and poor efficacy of natural killer (NK) cell-based immunotherapy, which becomes a key factor triggering tumour progression. Understanding the crosstalk between NK cells and the TME provides new insights for optimising NK cell-based immunotherapy. Here, we present new advances in direct or indirect crosstalk between NK cells and 9 specialised TMEs, including immune, metabolic, innervated niche, mechanical, and microbial microenvironments, summarise TME-mediated mechanisms of NK cell function inhibition, and highlight potential targeted therapies for NK-TME crosstalk. Importantly, we discuss novel strategies to overcome the inhibitory TME and provide an attractive outlook for the future.

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