The diverse roles of mucosal-associated invariant T lymphocytes in hematological malignancies

Document Type : Review Article

Authors

1 Microbiology and Immunology Department, Faculty of Pharmacy, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt

2 Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of medicine, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt

3 Medical Microbiology and Immunology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt, Gilbert & Rose-Marie Chagoury School of Medicine, Lebanese American University, Byblos, Lebanon

4 Department of Pharmacy, Al-Mansha Central Hospital, Sohag Health Directorate, Sohag, Egypt

5 Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Sphinx University, New-Assiut, Egypt

6 Department of clinical pathology, South Egypt cancer Institute, Assiut, University, Assiut 71515, Egypt.

Abstract

The majority of studies on Novel Mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells have focused on their involvement in solid tumours; however, the role and significance of MAIT cells in hematological malignancies are not well understood and have not been thoroughly investigated. MAIT cells is a population of αβ T cells that recognize non-peptide antigens presented by the non-polymorphic MR1 molecule. They are characterized by the expression of Vα7.2 together with high expression of the CD161. MAIT cells have been linked to a variety of tumours including, solid tumours such as hepatocellular carcinoma, colorectal, lung and kidney cancers and their frequencies in the tumour sites appeared to correlate with prognosis. MAIT cells were also studied in hematological malignancies such as multiple myeloma and leukaemia. In this review we will outline our current understanding of the relationship between MAIT cells and hematological malignancies, which will underline the possibility of targeting this subset for modern immunotherapy development.

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