Lukasz Bialkowski and Kris Thielemans
Recent advances in immunotherapy led to a breakthrough in cancer treatment, changing the algorithms of clinical cancer management. Not withstanding this success, numerous immune escape mechanisms significantly hamper the long-term efficacy of immunotherapy. A growing body of evidence recognizes immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) as a major obstacle for effective anti-cancer immunotherapy. It is therefore postulated that multiple pathways in TME need to be targeted in support to the induction of tumor-specific effector immune cells. Our lab has developed a novel mRNA vaccination platform allowing for induction of strong anti-tumor immune responses in the context of cervical cancer. In our recent study, using a variety of in vivo and ex vivo techniques, we observed the existence of organ-specific microenvironments that differed in their immunosuppressive capacity. We demonstrated that the particularly hostile nature of genital tract TME could be alleviated using cisplatin. This data indicated that the induction of tumor-specific T cells accompanied by a simultaneous targeting of TME is a prerequisite for the improvement of adaptive anti-cancer immunotherapies, thereby emphasizing the need for a TME-tailored immunotherapy.