%0 Journal Article
%T Immunotherapy Targeting Heparanase-1 May Be the Dawn of Cancer Sufferers
%A Jun Zhang
%A Jian-Min Yang
%A Dai-Ming Fan
%J Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology Research
%D 2012
%I Thomson Research Publishing Group
%R 6051/j.issn.2224-3992.2012.01.047
%X Although there have been great advances in preventive andtherapeutic approaches, malignant tumor is still one of the majorcauses of death in the world. The control of invasion and metastasisof advanced-stage malignancies remains the pain in the neck.Recently, cancer immunotherapy has emerged as a new supplementfor cancer treatment that has weak side effects and favorableapplicability. Antigen presentation is critical for triggering suchimmune response, and Dendritic cells and Cytotoxic T Lymphocytesare very important in this process. Although cancer immunotherapyhas shown encouraging results in some human clinical trials, therehave been some momentous setbacks: (1) Most Tumor AssociatedAntigens (TAAs) that have been described are either tissue specificor nonsignificant for cell survival; (2) the poor reactivity of T cellsagainst TAAs; (3) immunosuppressive features of tumor cells; and(4) the expansion of Treg cells. Therefore, it is critical to identifypromising TAAs for tumor immunotherapy, and a class of TAAtermed ¡®Universal Tumor Antigens¡¯ has been proposed that issupposed not only to induce antitumor immunity against most tumortypes, but also to have crucial functional roles in tumor growthand development. Heparanase-1 can degrade the heparan sulfateproteoglycans in the extracellular matrix and basement membrane.Unlike most other TAA, heparanase-1 is found highly expressedin most mammalian malignant tumors, and many hurdles could beovercome when cancer immunotherapy is targeting heparanase-1.It was demonstrated many years ago that the metastatic potential oftumor cells is correlated with heparanase-1 expression. Thereby, itcan be hypothesized that heparanase-1 is a key enzyme involved inthe metastasis of malignant tumors, and immunotherapy aiming atheparanase-1 may be the dawn of advanced-stage cancer sufferers.
%K Immunotherapy
%K Heparanse
%K Cancer
%U http://www.ghrnet.org/index.php/joghr/article/view/67