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Abstract
Recently, many immunosuppressive checkpoints such as PD-L1, CTLA-4 and CD47, were identified in succession and serve as potential immunotherapy targets in human cancers. Among them, CD47, a ‘marker-of-self’ protein that is overexpressed broadly across tumor types, is emerging as a novel potent macrophage immune checkpoint for cancer immunotherapy. In this review, we highlight the prominent role of CD47 as a ‘don’t-eat-me’ signal that inhibits macrophage phagocytosis for immune evasion of a tumor and presents the opportunities and challenges for CD47 inhibitors both as monotherapy and in combination treatments for hematological cancers and solid tumors; some of these agents are currently in clinical trials.
Author’s contributions
MZ Wang mainly contributed in study design and manuscript revision; B Tong mainly did the literature search and wrote the manuscript; both authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the library of Peking Union Medical College Hospital and Peking Union Medical College for assistance with literature search.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.