Immunotherapy Targeting Tumor-Associated Macrophages

Yafei Liu; Rongsi Wang

doi:10.3389/fmed.2020.583708

Immunotherapy Targeting Tumor-Associated Macrophages

Front Med (Lausanne). 2020 Nov 5:7:583708. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2020.583708. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Yafei Liu¹, Rongsi Wang²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pharmacy, The Forth Affiliation Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, China.
² High School of East China Normal University, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

Macrophages are phagocytic cells that play a broad role in maintaining body homeostasis and defense against foreign pathogens; whereas tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) support tumor growth and metastasis by promoting cancer cell proliferation and invasion, immunosuppression, and angiogenesis, which is closely related to the poor prognosis in almost all solid tumors. Hence, deep-insight knowledge into TAMs can provide an opportunity to discover more effective strategies for cancer therapeutics. So far, a large number of therapeutic agents targeting TAMs are in clinical trials. In this review, we introduce an extensive overview about macrophages and macrophage-targeting agents.

Keywords: cancer; immunotherapy; macrophage; polarization; tumor microenvironment.

Publication types

Review