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REVIEW article

Front. Immunol.

Sec. Cancer Immunity and Immunotherapy

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1512509

This article is part of the Research Topic Overcoming Resistance to Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors: Mechanisms and Strategies in Cancer Therapy View all articles

The role of B2M in cancer immunotherapy resistance:Function, resistance mechanism, and reversal strategies

Provisionally accepted
  • Lanzhou University Second Hospital, Lanzhou, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Immunotherapy has emerged as a preeminent force in the domain of cancer therapeutics and achieved remarkable breakthroughs. Nevertheless, the high resistance has become the most substantial impediment restricting its clinical efficacy. Beta-2 microglobulin (B2M), the light chain of major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I, plays an indispensable part by presenting tumor antigens to cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) for exerting anti-tumor effects.Accumulating evidence indicates that B2M mutation/defect is one of the key mechanisms underlying tumor immunotherapy resistance. Therefore, elucidating the role played by B2M and devising effective strategies to battle against resistance are pressing issues. This review will systematically expound upon them, aiming to provide insight into the potential of B2M as a promising target in anticancer immune response.

    Keywords: B2M, cancer immunotherapy, Immune resistance mechanism, expression regulation, Reverse resistance strategy

    Received: 16 Oct 2024; Accepted: 03 Mar 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Han, Zhang, Li, Huang, Wang, Wang, Gao and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Hao Chen, Lanzhou University Second Hospital, Lanzhou, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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