Metal ions-based regulated cell death (RCD), a form of cell death involving metal ions and controlled by one or more cascade signaling pathways, has recently been termed “metalloptosis”. Given the rapid advances in understanding metalloptosis in malignant progression and nanotherapeutics, this review elucidates the latest progress in metalloptosis, focusing on the roles of...
T cell responses are generally curtailed by suppressive mechanisms within the tumor microenvironment (TME) that prevent T cell infiltration and function. Consequently, T cell-based therapies for solid tumors have yielded limited and often non-durable clinical responses. Tumors develop a hostile TME, where tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) that initially support T cells are...
The revolution in cancer immunotherapy, particularly through immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), underscores the significant role of the tumor microenvironment (TME) in determining therapeutic outcomes. At the heart of this is the classification of tumors into “cold” and “hot”, which significantly influences the efficacy of immunotherapy. “Cold” tumors are characterized by scant...
Tumors function as organ-like entities within complex ecosystems, interacting with diverse components of their microenvironment, including blood and lymphatic vessels, neurons, immune cells, metabolites, and cytokines, to drive tumorigenesis and progression. Our pan-cancer study investigated the universal tumor hallmarks, integrating metabolite characteristics with molecular...
Thyroid hormone (TH) signaling plays a major role in the development, energy homeostasis, and metabolism of most tissues. Recent studies have identified THs as drivers of prostate cancer (PCa) development and progression. We reported that the T3-scavenger protein µ-crystallin (CRYM) regulates the development and progression of PCa and that this involved crosstalk with androgen...
Ovarian cancer is one of the most lethal gynecological malignancies and is often associated with fluid build-up in the peritoneal cavity, known as ascites. Nearly one-third of patients with ovarian cancer present with ascites at the time of initial diagnosis, and more frequently with recurrent ovarian cancer. Ascites is a uniquely valuable tool for research, as it is...
Motivating the immune system to target tumour cells plays an increasingly prominent role in the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), but challenges such as low overall response rates persist in current clinical practice. Tumour cell MHC-Class-I (MHC-I) downregulation and antigen loss are typical mechanisms of immune evasion. To this end, a dual-functional RNA-based...
The pronounced chemotherapeutic heterogeneity observed in gastric cancer (GC) poses significant challenges to personalized treatment strategies, with current approaches lacking reliable predictive modalities for chemotherapy efficacy and postoperative prognosis. While patient-derived organoid (PDO) and xenograft (PDX) models serve as established three-dimensional platforms, their...
Current antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) face limitations due to a lack of tumor-selective targets, inefficient internalization, and challenges in reaching tumors in challenging sites, ultimately limiting their therapeutic efficacy. We developed and characterized V66-exatecan, a novel ADC composed of V66, a humanized antibody with high affinity for extracellular DNA (exDNA...
Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have emerged as versatile nanocarriers with promising potential in therapeutic applications due to their tunable physicochemical properties, ease of functionalization, and excellent biocompatibility. Recognized as one of the most extensively studied nanomaterials, AuNPs have demonstrated utility in cancer diagnostics, photothermal therapy, targeted drug...
Cancer therapy has been revolutionised by the emergence of RNA-based therapeutics, providing several strategies and mechanisms to regulate gene expression via messenger RNA (mRNA), small interfering RNA (siRNA), microRNAs (miRNA), antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs), and RNA aptamers. The present review highlights the recent advances in the preclinical development and clinical...
Cancer cells express high levels of programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) to evade immune surveillance. PD-L1 interacts with PD-1 on T cells to make them non-functional. Thus, PD-L1 and PD-1 are pivotal targets in cancer immunotherapy. While anti-PD-1/PD-L1 therapies have offered renewed hope for many patients, their modest efficacy remains a critical concern. This underscores...
Metabolic reprogramming is one of the fundamental characteristics of thyroid cancer (TC), which meets its energy and biosynthetic demands through mitochondrial dysfunction, glycolysis activation, lipid metabolism imbalance, and glutamine dependency, thereby promoting metastasis and reshaping the immune microenvironment. Exosomes, as extracellular vesicles, play a crucial role in...
The widespread environmental pollution of microplastics (MPs) and nanoplastics (NPs) has become a major public health issue, with increasing evidence associating their bioaccumulation with cancer onset. This review offers a thorough examination of the etiological contributions of MPs/NPs in carcinogenesis, clarifying their mechanistic roles in in vitro, in vivo, and patient...
Immunometabolism has established a groundbreaking paradigm for cancer immunotherapy by decoding the intricate interaction networks between metabolic pathways and immune responses. This review comprehensively explores the metabolic reprogramming of immune cells in the tumor microenvironment, analyzes the roles of key metabolic pathways, enzymes, and metabolites in immune...
In recent years, tumor metastasis has become one of the major causes of high recurrence and mortality in cancer patients. Owing to multiorgan involvement, metastatic cancers are now clinically difficult to cure and often have a very poor prognosis. In recent years, an increasing number of studies have shown that the establishment of a premetastatic niche (PMN) is necessary for...
Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are emerging as important regulators of gene expression in both normal biological systems and disease. Among them, metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT1) has attracted considerable attention due to its high nuclear expression and evolutionary conservation. It was first identified as a biomarker for lung cancer metastasis, but...
Tumors are a major global health problem. As economic development and material standards increase, the incidence and mortality of digestive system tumors have shown an overall rising trend. Among them, colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Despite advances in molecular biology and therapeutic strategies...
Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is a highly aggressive malignancy with poor prognosis and limited treatment options. While circular RNAs (circRNAs) are frequently dysregulated in ESCC, their functional roles and molecular mechanisms in tumor progression remain largely unexplored. We characterized circRNA using RT-PCR, Sanger sequencing, and fluorescent in situ...
Gastric cancer is the fifth most common cancer and the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. It is associated with high molecular and phenotypic heterogeneity. Early-stage gastric cancer can be treated with endoscopic resection and surgery, whereas at its advanced stage, sequential chemotherapy presents the only treatment option, which starts with first-line...
Pathogen-associated cancers account roughly 15–20% of all malignancies worldwide and arise from chronic infections by oncogenic viruses, bacteria and parasites. Pathogens can alter the tumor microenvironment (TME) into an immune-suppressive niche using multiple mechanisms, including immune checkpoint manipulation, chronic inflammation, metabolic reprogramming, and direct...
Radiotherapy resistance remains a major clinical challenge, largely driven by tumors’ ability to dynamically adapt through complex molecular networks. Critically, the ubiquitin system has emerged as a critical regulator of this resistance. This review examines how the ubiquitin system orchestrates radiotherapy resistance through spatiotemporal control of DNA repair fidelity...
Ferroptosis has been identified as a tumor-inhibiting event in a variety of cancers; however, its molecular basis in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) has not been completely elucidated. Notably, glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4) plays a crucial role in ferroptosis. Our previous research revealed that prostaglandin E synthase 3 (p23), a potential transcription factor, plays a...
Metastatic pancreatic cancer (mPC) has a dismal prognosis, with first line systemic therapy relying primarily on FOLFIRINOX (5FU/irinotecan/oxaliplatin) or AG (Gemcitabine/Nab-Paclitaxel). Therapeutic options for mPC refractory to these regimens remain poorly defined, and data on later-line options are scarce. This prospective, single-arm study evaluated the safety and...
Clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) features metabolic dysregulation, with altered lipid metabolism and ferroptosis dysregulation driving malignancy. This review examines the interplay between lipid reprogramming and ferroptosis resistance in ccRCC pathogenesis and therapy. Tumor cells exploit lipid accumulation for growth and evade ferroptosis adaptively. Preclinical studies...