Volume 11,Issue 2
Exploring Immunotherapy Strategies for Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma Microenvironment Based on Peptide-Mediated Signal Regulation
Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a difficult therapeutic challenge, with 50–60% of patients surviving for as long as 5 years, even now after many improvements in traditional therapy. The immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) of OSCC, which is rich in regulatory T cells, tumor-associated macrophages, and myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), presents a significant obstacle to effective immunotherapy. Recent studies have shown that peptide-based therapies have the potential to regulate key signal transduction pathways in OSCC TME, and they have more advantages over traditional monoclonal antibodies, such as better tissue penetration, lower immunogenicity, and easier access to intracellular targets. This summary reviews the current understanding of peptide-mediated signal regulation strategies for modulation of the microenvironment in OSCC, which include immune checkpoint regulation, metabolic reprogramming of immunosuppressive cell populations, and combinatorial approaches combining traditional therapies. Some research data show that synthetic long peptides, antimicrobial peptides with anti-cancer properties, and self-assembling peptide biomaterials can promote the reprogramming of immunologically cold OSCC TME to an immunologically active state. Clinical translation is still in its infancy, and a combination of HPV-targeted peptide vaccines and checkpoint inhibitors has shown promise in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. In the future, research will be extended to individualized neoantigen peptide vaccines, dual-checkpoint inhibitor peptides, and peptide-functionalized nanodelivery systems responsive to tumor microenvironmental stimuli. Overall analysis will build a model to help us understand the rational therapeutic strategy of peptide-based immunomodulation for OSCC.
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