The lab of Dr. Yong Wan published an article titled, "Proteolytic regulation of CD73 by TRIM21 orchestrates tumor immunogenicity," in Science Advances, January 2023.
In this work, proteomic analysis together with an array of patient tissue cohort specimen identified that unexpected accumulation of CD73 protein expression, an immune checkpoint protein, is associated with a poor prognosis and suppressed anti-tumor immunity in triple negative breast cancer. This work for the first time identified that CD73 is regulated by posttranslational modifications whose dysregulated protein degradation disrupts anti-breast tumor immune response. The new evidence from this study highlights the importance of targeting CD73 and its posttranslational modifiers could be a promising strategy to reprogram the tumor microenvironment and a potential therapeutic target in triple negative breast cancer treatment.
