1 research outputs found
Phenotypic, functional, and metabolic heterogeneity of immune cells infiltrating non–small cell lung cancer.
Lung cancer is the leading cancer in the world, accounting for 1.2 million of
new cases annually, being responsible for 17.8% of all cancer deaths. In
particular, non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is involved in approximately
85% of all lung cancers with a high lethality probably due to the asymptomatic
evolution, leading patients to be diagnosed when the tumor has already spread
to other organs. Despite the introduction of new therapies, which have
improved the long-term survival of these patients, this disease is still not well
cured and under controlled. Over the past two decades, single-cell
technologies allowed to deeply profile both the phenotypic and metabolic
aspects of the immune cells infiltrating the TME, thus fostering the
identification of predictive biomarkers of prognosis and supporting the
development of new therapeutic strategies. In this review, we discuss
phenotypic and functional characteristics of the main subsets of tumorinfiltrating
lymphocytes (TILs) and tumor-infiltrating myeloid cells (TIMs) that
contribute to promote or suppress NSCLC development and progression. We
also address two emerging aspects of TIL and TIM biology, i.e., their
metabolism, which affects their effector functions, proliferation, and
differentiation, and their capacity to interact with cancer stem cells