@article{10.37349/ei.2025.1003227,
abstract = {Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) play a critical role in the ability of the immune system to combat cancer, offering a foundation for personalized immunotherapies. However, the effectiveness of TILs is often reduced by problems like becoming less active, the tumor making the immune system weaker, and not lasting long in the tumor environment. Recent advancements in single-cell technologies, including single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq), single-cell T-cell receptor sequencing (scTCR-seq), and mass cytometry (CyTOF), have revolutionized our understanding of TIL heterogeneity and dynamics. These tools offer new perspectives on the diverse phenotypes, functional states, and spatial organization of TILs, enabling the identification of key exhaustion markers, regulatory pathways, and neoantigen-specific clones. Concurrently, genetic reprogramming strategies have emerged to address TIL limitations by reversing exhaustion, enhancing metabolic resilience, and improving persistence in vivo. This review explores the synergistic integration of single-cell technologies and genetic engineering in refining TIL-based therapies. We talk about how spatial transcriptomics can help us understand how TILs work in different areas of the body and how changing their epigenetics can help them become more effective at fighting cancer. Additionally, we highlight emerging approaches to overcome immunosuppressive barriers in the tumor microenvironment (TME), including targeting regulatory immune cells, neutralizing suppressive cytokines, and enhancing antigen presentation. Together, these strategies promise to unlock the full therapeutic potential of TILs, paving the way for more effective and durable cancer immunotherapy.},
author = {Kumar, Chaitanya and Verma, Ravi and Sharma, Ashok and Priya, Veeraraghavan Vishnu},
doi = {10.37349/ei.2025.1003227},
journal = {Exploration of Immunology},
elocation-id = {1003227},
title = {Probing and enhancing tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes: insights from single-cell technologies and genetic reprogramming},
url = {https://www.explorationpub.com/Journals/ei/Article/1003227},
volume = {5},
year = {2025}
}