Molecular neuro-oncology and development of targeted therapeutic strategies for brain tumors

Brain tumors are a diverse group of malignancies that remain refractory to conventional treatment approaches.Molecular neuro-oncologyhas now begun to clarify the transformed phenotype of brain tumors and identify oncogenic pathways that might be amenable to targetedtherapy.Activity of the phosphoinositide 3;kinase(PI3K)/Akt pathway is often upregulated in brain tumors due to excessive stimu-lation by growth factor receptors and Ras.Loss of function of the tumor suppressor gene PTEN also frequently contributesto

Metabolic interventions combined with CTLA-4 and PD-1/PD-L1 blockade for the treatment of tumors:mechanisms and strategies

Immunotherapies based on immune checkpoint blockade(ICB)have significantly improved patient outcomes and offered new approaches to cancer therapy over the past decade.To date,immune checkpoint inhibitors(ICIs)of CTLA-4 and PD-1/PD-L1 represent the main class of immunotherapy.Blockade of CTLA-4 and PD-1/PD-L1 has shown remarkable efficacy in several specific types of cancers,however,a large subset of refractory patients presents poor responsiveness to ICB therapy;and the underlying mechanism remains elusive.Recently,numerous studies have revealed that metabolic reprogramming of tumor cells restrains immune responses by remodeling the tumor microenvironment(TME)with various products of metabolism,and combination therapies involving metabolic inhibitors and ICIs provide new approaches to cancer therapy.Nevertheless,a systematic summary is lacking regarding the manner by which different targetable metabolic pathways regulate immune checkpoints to overcome ICI resistance.Here,we demonstrate the generalized mechanism of targeting cancer metabolism at three crucial immune checkpoints(CTLA-4,PD-1,and PD-L1)to influence ICB therapy and propose potential combined immunotherapeutic strategies co-targeting tumor metabolic pathways and immune checkpoints.