Current understanding of cancer-intrinsic PD-L1: regulation of expression and its protumoral activity

In the last decade, we have witnessed an unprecedented clinical success in cancer immunotherapies targeting the programmed cell-death ligand 1 (PD-L1) and programmed cell-death 1 (PD-1) pathway. Besides the fad that PD-L1 plays a key role in immune regulation in tumor microenvironment, recently a plethora of reports has suggested a new perspective of non-immunological functions of PD-L1 in the regulation of cancer intrinsic activities including mesenchymal transition, glucose and lipid metabolism, stemness, and autophagy. Here we review the current understanding on the regulation of expression and intrinsic protumoral activity of cancer-intrinsic PD-L1.

Automated summary

In the past decade, cancer immunotherapies targeting PD-L1 and PD-1 pathway have achieved unprecedented clinical success. In addition to its immunological functions in tumor microenvironment, recent studies have revealed the non-immunological role of PD-L1 in regulating cancer intrinsic activities such as mesenchymal transition, metabolism, stemness, and autophagy.