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Immune Escape of Tumors

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Encyclopedia of Cancer
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Many tumors grow progressively despite an ongoing tumor-specific immune response. It has been experimentally shown that tumor cells adopt a variety of strategies to “escape” both innate immunity as well as adaptive immunity. For example, tumor cells down-regulate or loose tumor antigens or important components of the antigen-processing machinery so that T cells are no longer able to recognize peptides bound to major histocompatibility complex molecules on the cell surface. Tumor cells may also express Cytokines (such as IL-10 or TGFβ) or cell surface molecules (such as FAS or PD-1) which actively inhibit cellular anti-tumor immunity including the induction of T cell apoptosis, T cell anergy and regulatory T cells.

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© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York

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(2008). Immune Escape of Tumors. In: Schwab, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Cancer. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-47648-1_2976

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