Cancer And Immunology Research Article
Cancer immunology is the study of interactions between the immune system and cancer cells, which is a rapid growing field of research that aims to identify biomarkers in cancer immunodiagnosis and to develop innovative cancer immunotherapeutic strategies. The immune response, including the recognition of cancer-specific antigens, is of particular interest in cancer immunology field, which can further drive the development of new vaccines and antibody therapies. It is also well demonstrated that the immune system can recognize the antigenic changes in cancer cell and further develop antibody against these cellular antigens that have been generally called tumor-associated antigens (TAAs). These cancer-associated anti-TAAs autoantibodies might be considered as “reporters” from the immune system, to identify the antigenic changes in cellular proteins involved in the transformation process. There has been a growing interest in using serum autoantibodies against TAAs as biomarkers in cancer immunodiagnosis. The persistence and stability of these antibodies in the serum samples of cancer patients is an advantage over other potential markers, including the TAAs themselves, some of which are released by tumors but are rapidly degraded or cleared after circulating in the serum for a limited time. In recent years, the potential utility of TAA-autoantibody systems as early cancer biomarker tools to monitor therapeutic outcomes or as indicators of disease prognosis has been explored.
Last Updated on: Nov 29, 2024