Employing T cell homeostasis as an Antitumor Strategy

Abstract

In the arena of cancer treatments, chemotherapeutic agents and radiotherapy were originally designed to kill rapidly dividing cancer cells and deletion of lymphoid cells was simply considered collateral damage. The last few decades have witnessed a growing appreciation for immunologic control of tumor burdens, and consequently, numerous strategies designed to harness the immune system to combat cancers have been developed. While on the surface the combination of immune- depleting chemo/radiotherapies and immunotherapies may seem counterintuitive, the fact that the immune system has mechanisms in place for compensatory expansion after depletion, an effect called homeostasis-driven T cell expansion, has been exploited in both preclinical models as well as clinical therapies. This chapter examines both.