REVIEW article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Cancer Immunity and Immunotherapy
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1631258
This article is part of the Research TopicOvercoming Resistance to Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors: Mechanisms and Strategies in Cancer TherapyView all 4 articles
Targeting archetypes of viral-driven cancers with immunotherapy: a perspective on immunogenicity within the tumor microenvironment
Provisionally accepted
- 1School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States
- 2Singapore Immunology Network (A*STAR), Singapore, Singapore
- 3Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, Singapore
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Viral aetiologies of cancers have been widely studied for tumorigenesis and in recent years, widely recognized for their potential influence on immune regulation and response to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB). Here, we review the current understanding of how various oncogenic viruses are related to tumor immunogenicity and the tumor immune microenvironment. The present work also highlights the distinct features of these viral-driven cancers, that can be largely prognostic for better patient survival and response to ICB. On the other hand, there are also several commonalities in which how these cancers acquire resistance against conventional immunotherapy. Finally, we discuss our perspectives to address the existing conundrums to gain clearer insights on how the interplay between anti-viral and anti-tumor immunity can be exploited to develop novel therapeutic interventions.
Keywords: viral cancer, Immunotherapy, Immunogenicity, Immune check inhibitor (ICI), tumor micreoenvironment (TME)
Received: 19 May 2025; Accepted: 18 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lee, Kim, Zhao and Neo. 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: Shi-Yong Neo, Singapore Immunology Network (A*STAR), Singapore, Singapore
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.