GETTING DEFENSIVE: Tumors (cyan) create a cozy microenvironment to protect themselves from the immune system. Joseph Szulczewski, David Inman, Kevin Eliceiri, and Patricia Keely, Carbone Cancer Center at the Univ. of Wisconsin, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health
THE PAPERY. Nie et al., “Blockade of TNFR2 signaling enhances the immunotherapeutic effect of CpG ODN in a mouse model of colon cancer,” Sci Signaling, 11:eaan0790, 2018.DEFENSIVE PARAMETERCancers are notorious for creating a no-fly zone around themselves—called the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment—that is hostile to immunotherapy treatments. Determining ways to turn off immunosuppressive actors such as tumor-infiltrating regulatory T cells (Tregs) is vital to making immunotherapies more effective.FRIEND OR FOE?Conventional wisdom has long held that tumor necrosis factor (TNF) receptor type II (TNFR2) downregulates Treg function, says Xin Chen, a cancer researcher at the University of Macau. But his group had found that TNFR2 in fact acts with TNF to activate, expand, and stabilize the most immunosuppressive type of Tregs, and that it tends to be ...
