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Non‐classical major histocompatibility complex proteins as determinants of tumour immunosurveillance
Author(s) -
Gomes Anita Q.,
Correia Daniel V.,
SilvaSantos Bruno
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
embo reports
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.584
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1469-3178
pISSN - 1469-221X
DOI - 10.1038/sj.embor.7401090
Subject(s) - immunosurveillance , biology , major histocompatibility complex , immune system , immunology , nkg2d , human leukocyte antigen , antigen , tumor immunology , natural killer cell , immunotherapy , genetics , cytotoxic t cell , in vitro
Tumours develop in vertebrate organisms endowed with immune systems that are potentially able to eradicate them. Nevertheless, our ever‐increasing understanding of the complex interactions between lymphocytes and tumour cells fuels the long‐standing hope of developing efficient immunotherapies against cancer. This review focuses on a versatile family of proteins, the major histocompatibility complex class Ib, which has been recently implicated in both the establishment of anti‐tumour immune responses and in tumour immune response evasion. We focus on a subset of class Ib proteins, human leukocyte antigen (HLA)‐G, Qa‐2, CD1d and NKG2D ligands, which bind to either stimulatory or inhibitory receptors expressed on T, natural killer (NK) and NKT lymphocytes, and thereby modulate their anti‐tumour activity.