Role of inflammasome activation in tumor immunity triggered by immune checkpoint blockers

Immune Checkpoint Blockers and Ovarian Cancer

Although the idea, called "cancer immunotherapy," is very appealing and has previously been shown to work in several mouse models of cancer, it has in general been very difficult to translate cancer immunotherapy approaches to humans. Because of this frustration, by the 1990s, many scientists and biotechnology companies had given up on the idea of cancer immunotherapy. After few years, first de...

Targeting phosphatidylserine synergizes with immune checkpoint blockade by inducing de novo tumor specific immunity

Background Extensive studies have demonstrated that the inside-out membrane phospholipid phosphatidylserine (PS) actively drives global immunosuppression in the tumor microenvironment and is a major contributor to tumor resistance to immune checkpoint blockade. We have shown that PS targeting antibodies can re-program the tumor microenvironment from immunosuppressive to immune potentiating by r...

The Role of Potassium in Inflammasome Activation by Bacteria*

Many Gram-negative bacteria possess a type III secretion system (TTSS( paragraph sign)) that can activate the NLRC4 inflammasome, process caspase-1 and lead to secretion of mature IL-1beta. This is dependent on the presence of intracellular flagellin. Previous reports have suggested that this activation is independent of extracellular K(+) and not accompanied by leakage of K(+) from the cell, i...

Control of NK Cell Activation by Immune Checkpoint Molecules

The development of cancer and chronic infections is facilitated by many subversion mechanisms, among which enhanced expression of immune checkpoints molecules, such as programmed death-1 (PD-1) and cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated antigen 4 (CTLA-4), on exhausted T cells. Recently, immune checkpoint inhibitors have shown remarkable efficiency in the treatment of a number of cancers. However, e...

Role of Shape in Inflammasome Activation Texturing of Polymer Microparticles: The Tuning Innate Immune Activation by Surface