Drug functional remapping: a new promise for tumor immunotherapy

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Pharmacology
• Immunology

Background:

• Developing new anti-cancer drugs is costly and time-consuming, with limited data on side effects.
• Traditional drugs have well-established safety profiles from long-term use.
• Resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) is a major challenge in cancer immunotherapy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review novel applications of traditional drugs in tumor immunotherapy.
• To explore how drug repurposing can enhance treatment efficacy and overcome ICI resistance.
• To highlight the potential of repurposed drugs in expanding therapeutic options for cancer.

Main Methods:

• Review of recent advancements in drug repurposing for cancer immunotherapy.
• Analysis of systematic methods for identifying repurposed drug candidates, including high-throughput screening and computational approaches.
• Examination of specific drug classes (antidiabetic, antihypertensive, weight-loss, antifungal, antiviral) in tumor immunotherapy.

Main Results:

• Drug repurposing offers an economical and feasible strategy for new drug development in oncology.
• Repositioning traditional drugs can enhance tumor immunotherapy efficacy by modulating immune cell activity or the tumor microenvironment.
• Identified specific drug classes with potential for enhancing tumor immunotherapy.

Conclusions:

• Drug repurposing provides a rapid and cost-effective pathway for identifying novel cancer therapeutics.
• Leveraging existing drug safety data accelerates clinical translation.
• Further exploration of repurposed drugs is crucial for advancing cancer immunotherapy and overcoming resistance.