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Editorial Board Members’ Collection Series: “Advanced NK Cell-Based Approaches for Cancer Immunotherapy”

A special issue of International Journal of Molecular Sciences (ISSN 1422-0067). This special issue belongs to the section "Biochemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2024) | Viewed by 1361

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Roberto Bei

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Clinical Sciences and Translational Medicine, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, 00133 Rome, Italy
Interests: cancer immunotherapy; natural compounds and cancer; cancer vaccines; cancer prevention and treatment in preclinical models
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Loredana Cifaldi

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Clinical Sciences and Translational Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, 00133 Roma, Italy
Interests: immunology; innate immunity; tumor immunotherapy; NK cells; CAR-NK cells; immunomodulatory drugs; TME

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Natural Killer (NK) cells play an essential role in killing cancer cells. Cancer patients generally harbor dysfunctional and a reduced number of effector immune cells, including NK cells. Thus, the adoptive transfer of autologous or allogeneic ex vivo-activated NK or genetically modified NK cells is a promising cellular therapy. In this Special Issue, we welcome the submission of Original Research, Review, and Opinion articles that enhance our understanding of the recent advances in molecular strategies aimed to boost the NK cell-mediated killing of tumor cells and that provide insights into new viewpoints on the adoption of NK cells in cancer immunotherapy. This article collection aims to cover the following aspects:

  1. Molecular strategies aimed at enhancing the expression of surface-activating ligands on tumor cells.
  2. Targeting molecular pathways that facilitate the NK cell-mediated ADCC.
  3. Molecular strategies promoting the production of chemoattractant molecules in the tumor microenvironment.
  4. Molecular strategies enhancing the expression of ligands for integrins and molecules involved in the formation of an activating synapse between tumor and NK cells.
  5. Strategies that target immune checkpoint inhibitors, combined with adoptively transferred NK cells.
  6. The generation of chimeric receptor-engineered NK cells to be adopted for the clinical treatment of cancer patients.

Prof. Dr. Roberto Bei
Dr. Loredana Cifaldi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • NK
  • CAR-NK
  • cancer
  • immunotherapy
  • solid tumor
  • hematopoietic tumor

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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12 pages, 12642 KiB  
Brief Report
Immunogenic Cell Death Inducers in Cancer Immunotherapy to Turn Cold Tumors into Hot Tumors
by Valeria Lucarini, Ombretta Melaiu, Paula Gragera, Kamila Król, Valentina Scaldaferri, Verena Damiani, Adele De Ninno, Daniela Nardozi, Luca Businaro, Laura Masuelli, Roberto Bei, Loredana Cifaldi and Doriana Fruci
Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2025, 26(4), 1613; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms26041613 - 14 Feb 2025
Viewed by 1011
Abstract
The combination of chemotherapeutic agents with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) has revolutionized cancer treatment. However, its success is often limited by insufficient immune priming in certain tumors, including pediatric malignancies. In this report, we explore clinical trials currently investigating the use of immunogenic [...] Read more.
The combination of chemotherapeutic agents with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) has revolutionized cancer treatment. However, its success is often limited by insufficient immune priming in certain tumors, including pediatric malignancies. In this report, we explore clinical trials currently investigating the use of immunogenic cell death (ICD)-inducing chemotherapies in combination with ICIs for both adult and pediatric cancers. Given the limited clinical data available for pediatric tumors, we focused on recent preclinical studies evaluating the efficacy of these combinations in neuroblastoma (NB). Finally, to address this gap, we propose an innovative strategy to assess the impact of ICD-inducing chemotherapies on antitumor immune responses in NB. Using tumor spheroids derived from a transgenic NB mouse model, we validated our previous in vivo findings concerning how anthracyclines, specifically mitoxantrone and doxorubicin, significantly enhance MHC class I surface expression, stimulate IFNγ and granzyme B production by CD8+ T cells and NK cells, and promote immune cell recruitment. Importantly, these anthracyclines also upregulated PD-L1 expression on NB spheroids. This screening platform yielded results similar to in vivo findings, demonstrating that mitoxantrone and doxorubicin are the most potent immunomodulatory agents for NB. These data suggest that the creation of libraries of ICD inducers to be tested on tumor spheroids could reduce the number of combinations to be tested in vivo, in line with the principles of the 3Rs. Furthermore, these results highlight the potential of chemo-immunotherapy regimens to counteract the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment in NB, paving the way for improved therapeutic strategies in pediatric cancers. They provide compelling evidence to support further clinical investigations of these combinations to enhance outcomes for children with malignancies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Editorial Board Members’ Collection Series: “Advanced NK Cell-Based Approaches for Cancer Immunotherapy”)
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