REVIEW article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Cancer Immunity and Immunotherapy
This article is part of the Research TopicCancer Immunity: From Immunosurveillance to Immune Escape and Therapeutic TargetingView all 3 articles
The Pro-Tumorigenic Roles of Granzyme B: Mechanisms and Therapeutic Implications
Provisionally accepted
- 1The Affiliated Hospital of Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, China
- 2Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, China
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Granzyme B (GZMB) is an effector molecule primarily expressed by cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) and natural killer (NK) cells. Historically, GZMB expression levels have served as a marker of immune activity, indicative of the potency of anti-tumor immunity. However, recent evidence increasingly demonstrates that GZMB also exerts immunosuppressive effects within the tumor microenvironment. Beyond CTLs and NK cells, GZMB derived from multiple immune and tumor cells promotes tumor initiation and progression by regulating biological processes such as extracellular matrix remodeling, epithelial-mesenchymal transition, and angiogenesis. This paper summarizes the pro-tumor sources and mechanisms of GZMB, providing a comprehensive understanding of its clinical significance to guide more holistic GZMB-based anti-tumor therapies.
Keywords: Epithelial-mesenchymal transition(EMT), extracellularmatrix(ECM) remodeling, Granzyme B(GZMB), Pro-tumor, tumor microenvironment（TME）
Received: 28 Oct 2025; Accepted: 08 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang, Huang, Xie, Li and Zhou. 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:
Chunhong Li
Xiangyu Zhou
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