Glioblastoma (GB) has been shown to up-regulate autophagy with anti- or pro-oncogenic effects. Recently, our group has shown how GB cells aberrantly up-regulate chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA) in pericytes of peritumoral areas to modulate their immune function through cell-cell interaction and in the tumor's own benefit. Thus, to understand GB progression, the effect that GB cells could have on autophagy of immune cells that surround the tumor needs to be deeply explored. In this review, we summarize all the latest evidence of several molecular and cellular immunosuppressive mechanisms in the perivascular tumor microenvironment. This immunosuppression has been reported to facilitate GB progression and may be differently modulated by several types of autophagy as a critical point to be considered for therapeutic interventions.
Keywords: autophagy; autophagy inhibitors; chaperone-mediated autophagy; glioblastoma; immunosuppressive; pericytes; perivascular cells; tumor; tumor immune tolerance.