Modulation of cancer-specific immune responses by amino acid degrading enzymes

Elina Timosenko1, Andreas V Hadjinicolaou1, Vincenzo Cerundolo1

  • 1MRC Human Immunology Unit, Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, OX3 9DS, UK.

Immunotherapy
|December 22, 2016
PubMed

To evade immune destruction, tumors exploit a wide range of immune escape mechanisms, including the induction of an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. This is mediated, in part, by amino acid degrading enzymes indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase, tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenase, arginase 1 and arginase 2, which have emerged as key players in the regulation of tumor-induced immune tolerance. Here we describe how the expression of tryptophan- and arginine-degrading enzymes by tumor and tumor-infiltrating cells can hamper cancer-specific immune responses, and discuss how this knowledge is being exploited to develop new strategies for cancer immunotherapy.

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