Author(s)

Yixin Deng, Hong Pan and Zhanming Zhang

Corresponding Author

Hong Pan

ABSTRACT

In the past few years, cancer immunotherapy has been accompanied by encouraging results. Cell death protein 1 (PD-1) plays a crucial role in suppressing immune responses and promoting self-tolerance by regulating T cell activity, activating apotheosis. Antigen-specific T cells, programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1) is a transmembrane protein that is considered a common suppressor of the immune response and can bind to PD-1, reducing the proliferation of PD-1-positive cells, inhibiting their cytokine secretion, and inducing apotheosis. 1 thus PD-L1 also plays an important role in various malignancies. It can attenuate the host immune response to tumor cells. Based on these views, the PD-1 / PD-L1 axis is responsible for immune evasion of cancer and has a tremendous impact on cancer treatment. Blockade of PD1 is important cancer immunotherapy. Taking pembrolizumab (keytruda) as an example is a humanized monoclonal anti-pd1 antibody that has been extensively studied in many malignancies. Pembrolizumab has been approved by the US FDA for the treatment of advanced melanoma and NSCLC. This review aims to improve cancer treatment by summarizing the roles of PD-1 and PD-L1 in cancer, thereby exemplifying a variety of PD-1 blockade drugs compared to typical pembrolizumab (keytruda) drugs, analyzing the comparative distinctions between modern immunotherapy and traditional chemotherapy for cancer.

KEYWORDS

Cell death protein 1, Cancer, Immunotherapy, Tumor immunity