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Harnessing the immune system against cancer: current immunotherapy approaches and therapeutic targets

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Abstract

Cancer immunotherapy is a rapidly evolving concept that has been given the tag "fifth pillar" of cancer therapy while radiation therapy, chemotherapy, surgery and targeted therapy remain the other four pillars. This involves the stimulation of the immune system to control tumor growth and it specifically targets the neoplastic cells rather than the normal cells. Conventional chemotherapy has many limitations which include drug resistance, recurrence of cancer and severe adverse effects. Immunology has made major treatment breakthroughs for several cancers such as colorectal cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, liver cancer, kidney cancer, stomach cancer, acute lymphoblastic leukaemia etc. Currently, therapeutic strategies harnessing the immune system involve Checkpoint inhibitors, Chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR T cells), Monoclonal antibodies, Cancer vaccines, Cytokines, Radio-immunotherapy and Oncolytic virus therapy. The molecular characterization of several tumor antigens (TA) indicates that these TA can be utilized as promising candidates in cancer immunotherapy strategies. Here in this review, we highlight and summarize the different categories of emerging cancer immunotherapies along with the immunologically recognized tumor antigens involved in the tumor microenvironment.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the support from Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham. We express our sincere gratitude to Dr Shanthikumar V Nair, Dean of research, AIMS and Dr Sabitha M, Principal, Amrita School of Pharmacy for all the facilities provided.

Funding

We acknowledge the support of the Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham SEED grant (Project ID: K-PHAR-20-627) to LRN. This review work was supported by a research grant from Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham under the PhD Student Research University Grant Scheme to ARK.

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  1. Aswathy R. Devan and Bhagyalakshmi Nair have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pharmacognosy, Amrita School of Pharmacy, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, AIMS Health Science Campus, Ponekkara P. O., Kochi, Kerala, 682041, India

    Ayana R. Kumar, Aswathy R. Devan, Bhagyalakshmi Nair & Lekshmi R. Nath

  2. Department of Biochemistry, Sree Narayana College, Kollam, Kerala, 691001, India

    Balachandran S. Vinod

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Contributions

LRN and BSV designed, conceptualized the review, revised and proofread the manuscript. ARK collected the kinds of literature and drafting of the first draft. ARD carried out a literature review and revised the draft. BLN carried out artwork.

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Correspondence to Balachandran S. Vinod or Lekshmi R. Nath.

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Kumar, A.R., Devan, A.R., Nair, B. et al. Harnessing the immune system against cancer: current immunotherapy approaches and therapeutic targets. Mol Biol Rep 48, 8075–8095 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-021-06752-9

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