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ARTICLE | Translation in Brief

Eating cancer

How HDAC inhibitors turn immunosuppressive macrophages against tumors

April 13, 2017 7:36 PM UTC

With immuno-oncology companies increasingly looking beyond T cells to other immune cell types that could drive an antitumor response, GlaxoSmithKline plc (LSE:GSK; NYSE:GSK) has hit on a new strategy for enlisting macrophages. Although the cells are often viewed as bad actors in cancer, shielding tumors from an immune attack, the company has shown that epigenetics can be used to convert macrophages from a protumor to an antitumor phenotype.

In the tumor microenvironment, subpopulations of immunosuppressive protumor and immunostimulatory antitumor macrophages both exist, but for most solid tumors, the net effect is protumor...

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HDAC