Copyright
©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Stem Cells. Jul 26, 2021; 13(7): 795-824
Published online Jul 26, 2021. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v13.i7.795
Published online Jul 26, 2021. doi: 10.4252/wjsc.v13.i7.795
Immunotherapy against programmed death-1/programmed death ligand 1 in hepatocellular carcinoma: Importance of molecular variations, cellular heterogeneity, and cancer stem cells
Caecilia H C Sukowati, Claudio Tiribelli, Centro Studi Fegato, Fondazione Italiana Fegato ONLUS, Trieste 34149, Italy
Korri Elvanita El-Khobar, Hepatitis Unit, Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology, Jakarta 10430, Indonesia
Author contributions: Sukowati CHC conceived the idea; Sukowati CHC and El-Khobar KE wrote the manuscript; Tiribelli C critically revised the text; all authors read and approved the manuscript.
Supported by 2020 Grant of the Fondazione Umberto Veronesi , Milan, Italy (to Sukowati CHC); and a Grant of the Regione Autonomo Friuli Venezia Giulia in Progetti Internazionali 2020 (DGR 2195 dd 20/12/2019) to the FIF.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors declare no conflict of interests for this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Caecilia H C Sukowati, BSc, PhD, Senior Scientist, Centro Studi Fegato, Fondazione Italiana Fegato ONLUS, AREA Science Park Basovizza, SS14 km 163.5, Trieste 34149, Italy. caecilia.sukowati@fegato.it
Received: February 18, 2021
Peer-review started: February 18, 2021
First decision: March 16, 2021
Revised: March 25, 2021
Accepted: May 7, 2021
Article in press: May 7, 2021
Published online: July 26, 2021
Processing time: 155 Days and 0 Hours
Peer-review started: February 18, 2021
First decision: March 16, 2021
Revised: March 25, 2021
Accepted: May 7, 2021
Article in press: May 7, 2021
Published online: July 26, 2021
Processing time: 155 Days and 0 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), in particular the ICIs against the programmed death-1/programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1/PD-L1) axis, have recently been presented for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, despite the success of anti-PD-1/PD-L1 in other cancers, a substantial proportion of HCC patients fail to respond. Here, we gather current information on biomarkers of anti-PD-1/PD-L1 treatment and the contribution of HCC heterogeneity and hepatic cancer stem cells.