Endothelial autophagy blockade fosters anti-cancer immunity

The discovery of immune checkpoints, consisting of transmembrane ligand-receptor protein pairs that negatively regulate the CD8 + T-cell-mediated immune response by antigen-presenting cells (APCs) and by cancer cells, has enabled a fundamental advancement of cancer therapies (Korman et al, 2022 ). Indeed, harnessing these homeostatic control mechanisms to their own advantage, tumor cells manage to defend themselves from the attack of the immune system, and immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) has proven to be an overwhelmingly successful antitumor therapeutic approach (Korman et al, 2022 ). G. Serini and G. Villari discuss the recent study by Verhoeven et al, in which autophagy is identified as a tumor vascular anti-inflammatory mechanism that impairs melanoma anti-tumor immunity.