Cancer and the Immune System: an Overview

GE Blair1 and GP Cook2

1Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology, University of Leeds, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Leeds, UK and 2Leeds Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

Oncogene (2008) 27, 5868; doi:10.1038/onc.2008.277 subtly from their healthy counterparts. This requires the detection of altered self. The roots of cancer immunology lie in the work of some There is now a substantial body of data to show that of the most inﬂuential immunologists of the last 100 innate and acquired immune responses to tumours do years. The year 2008 sees the centenary of the birth of exist and that a multitude of immune cell types and their immunology itself, marked by the award of the Nobel associated molecules are involved in detecting and Prize to Elie Metchnikoff and Paul Ehrlich in 1908 eliminating tumours, several of which are discussed in (Kaufmann, 2008). Around this time, Ehrlich put the reviews presented here. Immunity to infection and forward a hypothesis that the immune system might tumour immunity share a common ‘dark side’, that of control tumours. The origins and progress of cancer immune evasion. It is a sad fact that, by the time a immunology, and its associated high and low points, has patient presents with a clinically detectable tumour, the been reviewed in depth, highlighting the development of tumour has already successfully evaded cancer immu- ideas from Ehrlich and Medawar through to the cancer nesurveillance mechanisms and is living alongside the immunesurveillance hypothesis of Burnet and into the immune system. Indeed, the immune system places era of cellular and molecular immunology (Dunn et al., strong selective pressure on tumours (and pathogens). 2002). The Oncogene review articles collected here Ultimately, those rare tumour cells that have mutations provide a glimpse at how several of the concepts of in the pathways that allow immune detection and cancer immunology currently stand. elimination are the cells that survive, proliferate and As all students of immunology should know, the kill the patient, the phenomenon of immunoediting immune system works essentially by discriminating self (Teng et al., 2008). The goal behind many immunother- from non-self. This enables the detection and elimina- apeutic strategies is to tip the balance from tumour tion of the smallest viruses and the largest multicellular immune evasion to a productive anti-tumour response. parasites. Non-self is discriminated from self by funda- Broadly, ithas notbeen our aim topresentreviews of mental differences in biochemistry, such as the arrange- immunotherapeutic strategies but to describe the more ment of carbohydrate residues on glycoproteins or the fundamental interactions between immune system com- absence of methylated cytosine residues in DNA. These ponents and tumour cells. However, it is from these differences are detected by the numerous pattern basic studies that molecular and cellular targets of receptors, which are a hallmark of the innate immune immunotherapy emerge and these areas are highlighted system. These pattern receptors include the Toll-like in these reviews. receptors, the subject of a recent Oncogene review issue Successful immunotherapy has been demonstrated (O’Neill, 2008). The activation of innate immunity leads using antibodies that target cancer cells, the subject of a to the efﬁcient priming of adaptive immune responses previous Oncogene review (Bonavida, 2007). Studies of mediated by B and T cells. These cells carry antigen the role of the cellular immune system in controlling receptors and, through education and cooperation, can cancer cells, such as those described in this Oncogene distinguish self from non-self antigen and trigger review issue, promise to deliver not only fascinating subsequent events. However, tumour cells are self in insights into the immune system but also lay the origin and their biochemistry and behaviour differs only foundation for future cellular immunotherapies.

References

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