Mitochondrial quality control includes mechanisms such as mitochondria-derived vesicles, fusion / fission and autophagy. These processes rely on the collaboration of a variety of key proteins in the inner and outer membranes of mitochondria to jointly regulate the morphological structure and functional integrity of mitochondria, repair mitochondrial damage, and maintain the homeostasis of their internal environment. The imbalance of mitochondrial quality control is associated with leukemia. Therefore, by exploring the mechanisms related to mitochondrial quality control of various leukemia cells and their interactions with immune cells and immune microenvironment, this article sought possible targets in the treatment of leukemia, providing new ideas for the immunotherapy of leukemia.
Fungal infection is an important clinical problem for patients with immune deficiency or immunosuppression. With deadly fungus infection case increasing, the development of antifungal vaccine attracts the attention of researchers. Dendritic cell (DC) is the unique antigen presenting cell (APC) to trigger the antifungal immune reaction, and recent studies indicate that the targeted vaccination strategy based on DC have prospective antifungal potentials. In this paper, we review the antifungal immunity mechanism and recent development of the targeted DC antifungal strategy.
The mortality rate of ovarian cancer is the highest among female reproductive tract malignancies. Although most patients have undergone recurrent treatments such as surgery, chemotherapy, and targeted therapy, the recurrence rate is still high. The exploration of scholars in this field has never stopped. In recent years, remarkable achievements have been made in the medical treatment of ovarian cancer. The research of poly adenosinediphosphate-ribose polymerase, immunotherapy (immunocheckpoint inhibitor monotherapy, immune checkpoint inhibitor combined with other drugs) and anti-angiogenic drugs have provided new methods for the treatment of this disease, and throughout the whole process of ovarian cancer treatment. This paper summarizes this, and aims to provide a reference for the clinical treatment of ovarian cancer.
ObjectiveTo review the present situation of immune checkpoint inhibitors in treatment of advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and discuss the advance of combined immunotherapy.MethodsThe relevant literatures on researches of immune checkpoint inhibitors in the treatment of advanced HCC were retrieved to make an review.ResultsImmunotherapy intervention had been becoming a novel and promising therapeutic approach for HCC, which could suppress the progression of aggressive tumor and could inhibit tumor recurrence and metastasis shown in some pre-clinical trials. Other studies had found that the combined strategy of specific immunotherapy and conventional therapies could significantly improve the clinical outcomes of HCC patients.ConclusionCombined immunotherapy can significantly improve the clinical outcomes of HCC and benefit more patients with advanced HCC.
ObjectiveTo explore the antitumor effect of tumor vaccine fused from dendritic cells (DC) and Walker-256 cancer cells on implanted liver cancer in rats and the related mechanism of inhibition for tumor angiogenesis. MethodsWalker-256 cancer cells and mature DC were fused by 50% polyethylene glycol method for preparation of DC-Walker-256 fusion vaccines. Implanted liver cancer models were established through operations on healthy male SD rats at the age of 6－8 weeks. All the rats were divided into four groups, and rats in each group were injected subcutanely with fusion vaccine (group), mixed cultured cells (group), simple DC (group), and PBS (blank control group), respectively. On 28 d after making model, the rats were put to death, the tumor was observed and pathological essays were prepared. All rats’ spleens were collected and prepared into lymphocyte to detect antigenic specificity cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) by enzymelinked immunosorbent spot (ELISPOT) method. The expressions of VEGF, ANG-1, ANG-2, and MVD were detected by immunohistochemistry. ResultsThe numbers of rats survived in the fusion vaccine group, mixed culture cells group, simple DC group, and blank control group was 8, 5, 6, and 3, respectively. The rats in the other three groups except for fusion vaccine group were manifested as inaction, anorexia, and gloomy fur in some degree as well as ascites. The tumorigenesis was found in all survival rats except for two in the fusion vaccine group. The weight of liver tumors of rats in the fusion vaccine group 〔(32.4±9.2) g〕 was significantly lighter than that in the mixed culture cells group 〔(67.3±5.1) g, P=0.031〕, simple DC group 〔(75.0±8.3) g, P=0.019〕, and blank control group 〔(86.6±10.5) g, P=0.008〕, respectively. The number of tumorspecific CTL of rats in the fusion vaccine group was also significantly higher than that in the other three groups (P=0.019, P=0.025, and P=0.001, respectively). The MVD of tumor tissue in the fusion vaccine group was (24.12±2.32) vessels/HP, which was significantly lower than that in the mixed culture cells group 〔(40.34±1.29) vessels/HP, P=0.025〕, simple DC group 〔(42.36±3.16) vessels/HP, P=0.035〕, and blank control group 〔(56.48±5.16) vessels/HP, P=0.006〕, respectively. The MVD of tumor tissue in the mixed cultured cells group and simple DC group was similar (P=0.165), however, which was significantly lower than that in the blank control group (P=0.040 and P=0.043). The positive rate of VEGFA protein expression was 23.2% in the fusion vaccine group, which was significantly lower than that in the mixed culture cells group (42.5%, P=0.031), simple DC group (61.3%, P=0.019), and blank control group (89.6%, P=0.003), respectively. The positive rate of VEGF-A protein expression in the mixed cultured cells and simple DC groups was similar (P=0.089), however, which was significantly lower than that in the blank control group (P=0.027 and P=0.038). The positive rate of ANG-1 protein expression in the fusion vaccine group (43.2%) was not different from that in the mixed culture cells group (46.3%, P=0.292), simple DC group (51.3%, P=0.183), or blank control group (49.6%, P=0.179), respectively, and the difference of pairwise comparison in latter three groups was not significant (P=0.242, P=0.347, and P=0.182). The positive rate of ANG2 protein expression was 19.2% in the fusion vaccine group, which was significantly lower than that in the mixed culture cells group (62.3%, P=0.007), simple DC group (67.3%, P=0.005), and blank control group (71.6%, P=0.004), respectively, however, the difference of pairwise comparison in latter three groups was not significant (P=0.634, P=0.483, and P=0.379). ConclusionFused vaccine can induce CD8+ CTL aiming at tumor cells and establish the effective antitumor immunity in vivo and also downregulate the level of VEGF and ANG-2 to suppress tumor angiogenesis and thereby achieve the purpose of curing tumor.
Chronic cerebral hypoperfusion (CCH) plays an important role in the occurrence and development of vascular dementia (VD). Recent studies have indicated that multiple stages of immune-inflammatory response are involved in the process of cerebral ischemia, drawing increasing attention to immune therapies for cerebral ischemia. This study aims to identify potential immune therapeutic targets for CCH using bioinformatics methods from an immunological perspective. We identified a total of 823 differentially expressed genes associated with CCH, and further screened for 9 core immune-related genes, namely RASGRP1, FGF12, SEMA7A, PAK6, EDN3, BPHL, FCGRT, HSPA1B and MLNR. Gene enrichment analysis showed that core genes were mainly involved in biological functions such as cell growth, neural projection extension, and mesenchymal stem cell migration. Biological signaling pathway analysis indicated that core genes were mainly involved in the regulation of T cell receptor, Ras and MAPK signaling pathways. Through LASSO regression, we identified RASGRP1 and BPHL as key immune-related core genes. Additionally, by integrating differential miRNAs and the miRwalk database, we identified miR-216b-5p as a key immune-related miRNA that regulates RASGRP1. In summary, the predicted miR-216b-5p/RASGRP1 signaling pathway plays a significant role in immune regulation during CCH, which may provide new targets for immune therapy in CCH.
ObjectiveTo summarize the mechanism of action of programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1)/programmed cell death ligand-1 (PD-L1) inhibitors, the application in breast cancer in recent years and the advances in the study of their bio-markers of effects. MethodRelevant literatures on PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors and the study in the field of breast cancer were reviewed and summarized.ResultsIn recent years, the monotherapy of immune checkpoint inhibitors represented by PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors or in combination with other therapies had brought new hope for patients with breast cancer especially triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). However, only a small number of patients could benefit from breast cancer immunotherapy. The current researchers think that the efficacy of these drugs is related to PD-L1 expression in tumor tissue, tumor mutation burden (TMB), high level of microsatellite instability (MSI-H) and deficient mismatch repair (dMMR).ConclusionBreast cancer can benefit from the immunotherapy of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors, but formulating personalized medicine model, finding biomarkers that can predict efficacy and selecting patients with breast cancer who can benefit from it for targeted therapy are the new requirements in the new era of breast cancer immunotherapy.