Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jul 28, 2016; 22(28): 6469-6483
Published online Jul 28, 2016. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v22.i28.6469
Specific CD8+ T cell response immunotherapy for hepatocellular carcinoma and viral hepatitis
Elia Moreno-Cubero, Juan-Ramón Larrubia
Elia Moreno-Cubero, Juan-Ramón Larrubia, Translational Hepatology Unit, Guadalajara University Hospital, University of Alcalá, E-19002 Guadalajara, Spain
Elia Moreno-Cubero, Department of Biology of Systems, University of Alcalá, 28805 Alcalá de Henares (Madrid), Spain
Juan-Ramón Larrubia, Department of Medicine and Medical Specialties, University of Alcalá, 28805 Alcalá de Henares (Madrid), Spain
Author contributions: Moreno-Cubero E and Larrubia JR contributed equally to the conception and design of the review; Moreno-Cubero E wrote the manuscript; and Larrubia JR revised the final document.
Supported by “Instituto de Salud Carlos III”, Spain & “European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), a way of making Europe”, No. PI12/00130 and No. PI15/00074; “Gilead Spain & Instituto de Salud Carlos III”, No. GLD14_00217.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Juan-Ramón Larrubia, MD, MSc, PhD, Translational Hepatology Unit, Guadalajara University Hospital, University of Alcalá, E-19002 Guadalajara, Spain. juan.larrubia@uah.es
Telephone: +34-949-209200 Fax: +34-949-909256
Received: March 23, 2016
Peer-review started: March 24, 2016
First decision: May 12, 2016
Revised: May 21, 2016
Accepted: June 15, 2016
Article in press: June 15, 2016
Published online: July 28, 2016
Core Tip

Core tip: In certain types of chronic diseases, such as hepatocellular carcinoma and chronic viral hepatitis, disease curation involves restoration of the specific cytotoxic T cell response. Chronic hepatotropic viruses and tumoural cells develop mechanisms to induce exhaustion of the specific CD8+ T cells in order to escape immune destruction. One hallmark of this dysfunction is the overexpression of negative co-stimulatory molecules. Blockade of these negative co-stimulatory pathways, a process known as immune checkpoint modulation, is a promising novel therapy that could improve the treatment of liver diseases that feature T cell exhaustion.