Anthracyclines potentiate anti-tumor immunity: A new opportunity for chemoimmunotherapy

Anthracyclines are a class of drugs, including doxorubicin, epirubicin and idarubicin, used in cancer chemotherapy which are derived from Streptomyces bacterium Streptomyces peucetius var. caesius. Traditionally, substantial pieces of evidence have demonstrated that anthracyclines could harness the host immune system to prevent cancer progression. But nowadays, researches also implied that anthracyclines could sensitize tumor cells to immune cell driven cytotoxicity, like dendritic cells and CD8+ T cell. The ability of anthracyclines in tumor immune cycle, including trigger direct tumor cell death, enhance immune effector cell activation and eliminate immunosuppressive myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), explained its capacity to relieve tumor induced immunosuppression and restore anticancer immune responses. And current pre-clinical and clinical trials implied that combination therapies using anthracyclines with immunotherapy have further enhanced the clinical benefit. Here, we discuss how the increased understanding of the immune-driven effects of anthracyclines prompts the design of relevant cancer chemoimmunotherapy strategies.