Go to JCI Insight
  • About
  • Editors
  • Consulting Editors
  • For authors
  • Publication ethics
  • Publication alerts by email
  • Advertising
  • Job board
  • Contact
  • Clinical Research and Public Health
  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • By specialty
    • COVID-19
    • Cardiology
    • Gastroenterology
    • Immunology
    • Metabolism
    • Nephrology
    • Neuroscience
    • Oncology
    • Pulmonology
    • Vascular biology
    • All ...
  • Videos
    • Conversations with Giants in Medicine
    • Video Abstracts
  • Reviews
    • View all reviews ...
    • Pancreatic Cancer (Jul 2025)
    • Complement Biology and Therapeutics (May 2025)
    • Evolving insights into MASLD and MASH pathogenesis and treatment (Apr 2025)
    • Microbiome in Health and Disease (Feb 2025)
    • Substance Use Disorders (Oct 2024)
    • Clonal Hematopoiesis (Oct 2024)
    • Sex Differences in Medicine (Sep 2024)
    • View all review series ...
  • Viewpoint
  • Collections
    • In-Press Preview
    • Clinical Research and Public Health
    • Research Letters
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Editorials
    • Commentaries
    • Editor's notes
    • Reviews
    • Viewpoints
    • 100th anniversary
    • Top read articles

  • Current issue
  • Past issues
  • Specialties
  • Reviews
  • Review series
  • Conversations with Giants in Medicine
  • Video Abstracts
  • In-Press Preview
  • Clinical Research and Public Health
  • Research Letters
  • Letters to the Editor
  • Editorials
  • Commentaries
  • Editor's notes
  • Reviews
  • Viewpoints
  • 100th anniversary
  • Top read articles
  • About
  • Editors
  • Consulting Editors
  • For authors
  • Publication ethics
  • Publication alerts by email
  • Advertising
  • Job board
  • Contact
Osteopontin controls immunosuppression in the tumor microenvironment
Michael R. Shurin
Michael R. Shurin
Published November 5, 2018
Citation Information: J Clin Invest. 2018;128(12):5209-5212. https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI124918.
View: Text | PDF
Commentary

Osteopontin controls immunosuppression in the tumor microenvironment

  • Text
  • PDF
Abstract

Cancer cells evade the immune system through a variety of different mechanisms, including the inhibition of antitumor effector T cells via checkpoint ligand–receptor interaction. Moreover, studies have shown that blocking these checkpoint pathways can reinvigorate the antitumor immunity, thereby prompting the development of numerous checkpoint immunotherapies, several of which are now being approved to treat multiple types of cancer. However, only a fraction of patients achieves promising long-term outcomes in response to checkpoint inhibition, suggesting the existence of additional unknown tumor-induced immunosuppressive pathways. In this issue of the JCI, Klement and colleagues describe an additional pathway of T cell inhibition in cancer. Specifically, the authors demonstrate that downregulation of IRF8, a molecular determinant of apoptotic resistance, in tumor cells aborts repression of osteopontin, which in turn binds to its physiological receptor CD44 on activated T cells and suppresses their activation. These results suggest that osteopontin may act as another immune checkpoint and may serve as a target to expand the number of patients who respond to immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy.

Authors

Michael R. Shurin

×

Full Text PDF

Download PDF (1015.69 KB)

Copyright © 2025 American Society for Clinical Investigation
ISSN: 0021-9738 (print), 1558-8238 (online)

Sign up for email alerts