Coordinated cellular programmes distinguish responses to neoadjuvant PD-L1 blockade and potentiate combinatorial immunotherapy in ESCC.

Coordinated cellular programmes involving exhausted T cells, regulatory T cells, memory B cells, and macrophages predict responses to neoadjuvant PD-L1 blockade in ESCC.

• Why it matters: Understanding the cellular mechanisms behind treatment response and resistance is crucial for improving immunotherapy outcomes in oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma, where current options are limited.
• What they did: The study analyzed single-cell and spatial transcriptomes of nearly 211,000 cells from ESCC tissues to identify cellular programmes associated with therapy response and resistance, focusing on immune cell interactions.
• The result: Findings reveal that specific cellular programmes correlate with treatment success or failure, and targeting lymphocyte activation gene 3 may enhance responses, guiding personalized immunotherapy strategies.