Active ingredients of traditional Chinese medicine for enhancing the effect of tumor immunotherapy

Chao Yang; Dan Li; Chung-Nga Ko; Kai Wang; Haiyong Wang

doi:10.3389/fimmu.2023.1133050

Active ingredients of traditional Chinese medicine for enhancing the effect of tumor immunotherapy

Front Immunol. 2023 Mar 10:14:1133050. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1133050. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Chao Yang¹, Dan Li², Chung-Nga Ko³, Kai Wang⁴, Haiyong Wang⁵

Affiliations

¹ National Engineering Research Center for Marine Aquaculture, Institute of Innovation & Application, Zhejiang Ocean University, Zhoushan, Zhejiang, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Southwestern Chinese Medicine Resources, School of Pharmacy, Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, China.
³ C-MER Dennis Lam and Partners Eye Center, Hong Kong International Eye Care Group, Hong Kong, China.
⁴ Research Center for Preclinical Medicine, Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, China.
⁵ Department of Internal Medicine Oncology, Shandong Cancer Hospital and Institute, Shandong First Medical University and Shandong Academy of Medical Sciences, Jinan, China.

Abstract

Immunotherapy is a type of treatment that uses our own immune system to fight cancer. Studies have shown that traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has antitumor activity and can enhance host immunity. This article briefly describes the immunomodulatory and escape mechanisms in tumors, as well as highlights and summarizes the antitumor immunomodulatory activities of some representative active ingredients of TCM. Finally, this article puts forward some opinions on the future research and clinical application of TCM, aiming to promote the clinical applications of TCM in tumor immunotherapy and to provide new ideas for the research of tumor immunotherapy using TCM.

Keywords: active ingredients; antitumor immunotherapy; immunomodulation; natural products; traditional Chinese medicine; tumor immunity.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Drugs, Chinese Herbal* / therapeutic use
Humans
Immunotherapy
Medicine, Chinese Traditional
Neoplasms* / drug therapy

Substances

Drugs, Chinese Herbal

Grants and funding

The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (82104477, U19A2010 and 81891012), National Interdisciplinary Innovation Team of Traditional Chinese Medicine (ZYYCXTD-D-202209).