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REVIEW article

Front. Immunol.
Sec. T Cell Biology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1519841
This article is part of the Research Topic Exploring Lymphocyte Signaling: From Health to Disease View all articles

Tumor cells escape immunosurveillance by hampering LFA-1

Provisionally accepted
Shishir Upadhyay Shishir Upadhyay Lewis Murugu Lewis Murugu Lena Svensson Lena Svensson *
  • Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

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

    During tumor immunosurveillance, leukocytes play a crucial role in the cellular defense system, working collaboratively with other immune components to recognize and eliminate aberrant cells. Integral to this process is the integrin Lymphocyte Function-Associated Antigen 1 (LFA-1). LFA-1 facilitates adhesion during leukocyte migration and helps establish stable cell-to-cell contacts between leukocytes and their targets. Additionally, as a receptor, LFA-1 signaling activates leukocytes, promoting their differentiation and effector functions against cancer. However, tumors can develop mechanisms to evade immune clearance by disrupting LFA-1 functions or hijacking its pathways. In this review, we first detail how leukocytes utilize LFA-1 during immunosurveillance and then explore how tumors counteract this process in the tumor microenvironment (TME) by either altering LFA-1 functions or exploiting it to drive tumorigenesis. Moreover, we discuss therapeutic strategies targeting LFA-1, including inhibitors tested in laboratory studies and animal models, highlighting their potential as anticancer interventions and the need for further research to evaluate their clinical utility.

    Keywords: LFA-1, Leukocytes, Cancer, TME, immunosurveillance, immune escape

    Received: 30 Oct 2024; Accepted: 02 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Upadhyay, Murugu and Svensson. 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: Lena Svensson, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

    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.