Immune Gene Therapy of Cancer
摘要
Cancer is the second global cause of mortality. Conventional treatments, such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy, have not provided desirable responses, and therefore, developing novel strategies for cancer treatment is necessary. Gene therapy, a novel method to transfect the target cell with a therapeutic genetic construct, has provided great hope for the treatment of several genetic and/or multifactorial diseases. Immunotherapy is defined as strategies to enhance the immune system’s response to different diseases. The combination of gene therapy and immunotherapy, named immune gene therapy, is a recently developed method that includes genetic modifications of the immune system and/or tumors to redirect a tumor-specific immune response. Modification of the innate immunity receptors, improving anticancer adaptive and innate immune cell function, inhibition of immune checkpoint inhibitors, modulation of cytokine/chemokine immune responses using DNA/RNA constructs, and modulation of the drug sensitivity and drug resistance genes are the main approaches for immune gene therapy of cancer. In this chapter, we aim to review the latest progress in the field of cancer immune gene therapy which has opened a new promising window for cancer treatment to improve patient survival in the near future.