Investigating Gametogenesis and Cancer for Discovering New Immunotherapeutic Targets

Dear Colleagues,

Human gametogenesis and carcinogenesis represent complex dynamic processes. Despite rapid advances in the fields of molecular and cellular biology, it is still widely debated as to how neoplastic cells progress through carcinogenesis and acquire their metastatic ability. Evidence has been accumulating since the middle of the last century—from animal models as well as from investigations in cancer patients—that the immune system can recognize and reject tumors. It is now accepted that immunotherapy evokes successful antitumor immune responses. Despite the increasing knowledge and preclinical data, it is only with the recent approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of drugs such as sipuleucel-T and ipilimumab that immunotherapy is finally being recognized as an alternative to traditional therapies for the treatment of cancer. Despite the ability of immunotherapy to elicit successful antitumor immune responses, its efficacy remains limited by several factors. Among these is the paucity of tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) that can be used as effective targets and the systemic toxicities that often lead to treatment interruption. A family of TAAs called cancer-testis antigens (CTAs) has been identified, and several of their encoding genes have been investigated in cancer of unrelated histologic origin. A high number of CTAs have been found in the mammalian sperm flagellum. Furthermore, there is no consensus regarding how to prioritize neoantigens, and the lack of effective prediction models makes it difficult to predict clinical benefits.

Today, a wide selection of software and in silico tools are accessible to predict immunogenic neo-antigens, but each has its own strengths and weaknesses, and it has been problematic to identify which tools or which combinations of tools works best in the discovery of new targets.

This Special Issue will contain a collection of manuscripts that describe investigations into the different approaches of tumor immunotherapy, covering a range of model systems and tumor types. Latest research Articles and Reviews aiming to clarify concepts, interpret experimental data, indicate specific experiments, and categorize the rich body of knowledge on the basis of the similarities and/or shared behaviors of very different tumors are welcome.

Prof. Dr. Fabio Grizzi
Prof. Sanja Stifter
Prof. Dr. Maurizio Chiriva-Internati
Guest Editors

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• tumor complexity
• immunotherapy
• tumor-associated antigens
• gametogenesis
• immuno-oncology
• cancer heterogeneity
• microenvironment
• stromal remodeling
• innate immunity
• adaptive immunity
• bioinformatics
• artificial intelligence