Reshaping the Immunosuppressive Tumor Microenvironment: The Fusion Protein Strategy

Advanced tumor cells often create immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment to block immune system's attack in defense. The conversion of the environment from immunosuppressive to immune active holds hopes for effective cancer immunotherapies. Fusion proteins coupled with appropriate delivery approaches represent a promising strategy for this conversion. In the last decade, a variety of fusion cytokine proteins (GPI-anchored IL-2/IL-12, RGD/Fc, MULT1E/FasTI, MULT1E/IL-12, and IL-12/FasTI) have been created and tested for their anti-cancer activities in a series of in vitro and in vivo studies. The efforts are going on to develop effective method to deliver the fusion proteins specifically into tumors.