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Updated: Aug 9, 2025

Analysis of Human T Cell Activity in an Allogeneic Co-Culture Setting of Pre-Treated Tumor Cells
Published on: March 7, 2025
NK cells are never alone: crosstalk and communication in tumour microenvironments
Yongqiang Zhou1,2,3, Lu Cheng3, Lu Liu4
1The First School of Clinical Medicine, Lanzhou University, 222 Tianshui South Road, Lanzhou, 730000, China.
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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