Abstract:

Traditional anti-tuberculosis drugs, directly targeting on the Mycobacterium tuberculosis, have played important roles on controlling tuberculosis. However, new strategies for treatment are needed to solve the remaining problems. In recent years, “host-directed therapy”,including new use of old drugs and cell immunotherapies, has been reported to have exciting efficacy. The γδ T cell immunotherapy attracted especial attention by immunologists and clinicians. The γδ T cells are a subset of T cells, quite different from αβ T cells. The safety and efficacy of γδ T cell immunotherapy for cancer treatment have been confirmed in clinical trials. At present, studies on animal and human with tuberculosis have demonstrated that γδ T cells play important roles in immune response against tuberculosis. This review introduces current implications of host-targeted therapy, especially γδ T cell immunotherapy in tuberculosis treatment, and recent progresses of the basic research and preclinical studies on this new therapy, and also proposes potential possibilities in anti-tuberculosis treatment.

Key words: Tuberculosis, T-lymphocyte subsets, Molecular targeted therapy, Immunotherapy