Intercellular transfer of HLA‐G: its potential in cancer immunology

Intercellular protein transfer between cancer cells and immune cells is a very common phenomenon that can affect different stages of host antitumor immune responses. HLA‐G, a non‐classical HLA class I antigen, has been observed to be widely expressed in various malignancies, and its immune‐suppressive functions have been well recognised. HLA‐G expression in cancer cells can directly mediate immune tolerance by interacting with inhibitory receptors such as ILT2 and ILT4 expressed on immune cells. Moreover, a network of multiple directional intercellular transfers of HLA‐G among cancer cells and immune cells through trogocytosis, exosomes and tunnelling nanotubes provides malignant cells with an alternative ploy for antigen sharing and induces more complex heterogeneity, to modulate immune responses, ultimately leading to immune evasion, therapy resistance, disease progression and poor clinical outcome. Herein, we discuss the relative aspects of the intercellular transfer of HLA‐G between tumor cells and immune cells and its potential use in tumor immunology research and translational cancer therapy.

• Publication year

  2019

• Venue

  Clinical & Translational Immunology

• Publication date

  2019-08-30

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1002/cti2.1077PMID 31489189PMCID 6716982
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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