New Opportunities for Cancer Immunotherapy - CD73 Antibody

Recently, Cell's "Trends in Cancer" published an article entitled "Anti-CD73 in Cancer Immunotherapy: Awakening New Opportunities" review. This review discusses the relationship between CD73 and tumorigenesis, progression, and diffusion, emphasizing the potential value of this molecule as a drug target and suggesting that CD73 is expected to be a new biomarker in the treatment of personalized cancer.

In recent years, the rapid development of cancer immunotherapy to the scientific community on tumor biology and immunology have a better understanding. The tumor microenvironment is a dynamic niche that includes cancer cells, immune cells, fibroblasts, myofibroblasts, cytokines, blood vessels and extracellular matrix. Tumors are often in hypoxic conditions, and the environment of glucose and other nutrients are also scarce.

Cancer immunotherapy

In order to survive, cancer cells in such an environment will reorganize their metabolic mechanisms. Among them, the latest evidence suggests that the regulation of purine metabolism is a very critical step, especially the increase in ecto-5'-nucleotidase (CD73) expression. This degrading enzyme can make AMP off the phosphate, which will lead to tumor microenvironment immunosuppression and pro-angiogenic adenosine halo production, and promote the occurrence and development of cancer.

Preclinical studies have shown that targeted CD73 is capable of producing good antitumor effects and that CD73 blockade therapy is associated with other immunomodulatory agents (such as CTLA-4 antibody, PD-1 antibody) as an attractive option The The authors say that despite the long way to go, but through the development of CD73 antibody, anti-CD73 treatment is expected to become a new type of biological therapy in the field of anti-cancer.

Structure and role of CD73 in extracellular metabolic pathway.

In addition, the review summarizes the following four trends:

First, the immune system plays an important role in the recognition and inhibition of tumor cells. First-generation immunotherapy has been used for decades and has been successful in some tumor types. However, most of the immunotherapy still lacks substantial efficacy or specificity, and the resulting side effects limit the clinical use of these therapies.

Second, in the past few years, researchers have a better understanding of the complex relationship between the immune system and the tumor, identifying key molecules that regulate the relationship between the two, including CTLA-4, PD-1 and PD-L1 and so on. These findings have led cancer immunotherapy to the forefront of science again.

Third, the complementarity between new immunotherapy and conventional chemotherapy and targeted therapy suggests that synergistic therapy may have synergistic effects.

Fourth, although CTLA-4, PD-1 and PD-L1 inhibition have been successfully applied in clinical practice, scientists are also actively investigating other checkpoint pathways. In these pathways, ecto-5'-nucleotidase (CD73) plays a key role in driving cancer immune escape, and therefore may be a potential target for the development of new anti-cancer immunotherapy.

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