The Status of Tumor Immunology and Cancer Immunotherapy

Tolerance or Immunity to a Tumor Antigen Expressed in Somatic Cells Can Be Determined by Systemic Proinflammatory Signals at the Time of First Antigen Exposure

“…Discrepancies between TA immunogenicity and induction of host protective immunity could represent failure of immunization to induce an appropriate quality of immune response, perhaps on a background of partial tolerance induced by cross-presentation. Alternatively, as tumor cells often have impaired Ag presentation machinery and tumor-directed local immunosuppression prevents effector functions (8,9), the immune response induced to TA might be appropriate, but tumor-specific factors might prevent elimination of the target tumor.…”