REVIEW article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Immunological Tolerance and Regulation
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1581093
This article is part of the Research TopicImmune Tolerance Strategies: How has Immunotherapy of Cancer Informed Novel Approaches?View all articles
Revisiting Tregs in Cancer and Beyond: Immunological Control and Therapeutic Potential
Provisionally accepted
- Qingdao University, Qingdao, Shandong Province, China
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Tregs play a crucial role in maintaining immune homeostasis, but their involvement in cancer and other diseases has made them a focus of intense research. Tregs contribute to immune evasion by tumors and can affect responses to therapies. Understanding their mechanisms and the potential to manipulate them therapeutically is critical for improving cancer treatment strategies. This review aims to provide an updated perspective on the role of Tregs in cancer and beyond, with a focus on their immunological control mechanisms and therapeutic potential. We examine the recent advances in understanding Treg biology, their interaction with the tumor microenvironment, and the strategies developed to target Tregs for cancer immunotherapy. The review highlights the dual role of Tregs in promoting immune tolerance and in facilitating tumor progression. It discusses the various markers, transcription factors, and signaling pathways involved in Treg differentiation and function. Moreover, we explore the potential of targeting Tregs using novel therapeutic approaches, including monoclonal antibodies, checkpoint inhibitors, and gene editing. The review emphasizes emerging strategies for modulating Treg function in a way that enhances anti-tumor immunity while minimizing systemic autoimmunity.
Keywords: Ying Feng, Caifeng Wu, Zhaojian Li: Writing, Revising. Yueru Zhou, Mengchao Niu, Xinyu Shi: Visualization, Software. Xiaolei Lan, Dongxue Tang
Received: 21 Feb 2025; Accepted: 03 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zheng, Wu, Xie and Zhao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Hai Zhao, Qingdao University, Qingdao, 266071, Shandong Province, China
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