The Interplay Between Epigenetic Regulation and CD8 + T Cell Differentiation/Exhaustion for T Cell Immunotherapy.

Effective immunotherapy treats cancers by eradicating tumourigenic cells by activated tumour antigen-specific and bystander CD8 ⁺ T-cells. However, T-cells can gradually lose cytotoxicity in the tumour microenvironment, known as exhaustion. Recently, DNA methylation, histone modification, and chromatin architecture have provided novel insights into epigenetic regulations of T-cell differentiation/exhaustion, thereby controlling the translational potential of the T-cells. Thus, developing strategies to govern epigenetic switches of T-cells dynamically is critical to maintaining the effector function of antigen-specific T-cells. In this mini-review, we 1) describe the correlation between epigenetic states and T cell phenotypes; 2) discuss the enzymatic factors and intracellular/extracellular microRNA imprinting T-cell epigenomes that drive T-cell exhaustion; 3) highlight recent advances in epigenetic interventions to rescue CD8 ⁺ T-cell functions from exhaustion. Finally, we express our perspective that regulating the interplay between epigenetic changes and transcriptional programs provides translational implications of current immunotherapy for cancer treatments.
Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
(Copyright © 2022 Wong, Yin, Lam, Huang, Yan, Tan and Wong.)