# Human cancer immunotherapy with antibodies to the PD-1 and PD-L1 pathway

Source: https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-pd-l1-urothelial-trends-mol-med-2015/  
OnCo record `paper-pd-l1-urothelial-trends-mol-med-2015` (Key paper). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Review on PD-L1 in Bladder & urothelial cancer, in Trends in molecular medicine (2015), one of the most cited Europe PMC records with PD-L1 in its title.

## Summary

The programmed death 1 (PD-1) receptor and its ligands programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) and PD-L2, members of the CD28 and B7 families, play critical roles in T cell coinhibition and exhaustion. Overexpression of PD-L1 and PD-1 on tumor cells and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, respectively, correlates with poor disease outcome in some human cancers. Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) blockading the PD-1/PD-L1 pathway have been developed for cancer immunotherapy via enhancing T cell functions. Clinical trials with mAbs to PD-1 and PD-L1 have shown impressive response rates in patients, particularly for melanoma, non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), renal cell carcinoma (RCC), and bladder cancer. Further studies are needed to dissect the mechanisms of variable response rate, to identify biomarkers for clinical response, to develop small-molecule inhibitors, and to combine these treatments with other therapies.

Indexed on Europe PMC as PubMed record 25440090 (DOI 10.1016/j.molmed.2014.10.009). Its title names PD-L1 and its text names Bladder & urothelial cancer; PubMed types it as a review (Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't, research-article, Review, Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S., Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural). It was matched automatically to the idea "Anchor a TGF-beta trap in the tumour stroma so it cannot act everywhere" and no figure has been checked by an editor.

## Fields

- Kind: Key paper
- Last checked: 2026-09-22
- Tags: europepmc-ingest
- Journal: Trends in molecular medicine
- Year: 2015
- DOI: 10.1016/j.molmed.2014.10.009
- Authors: Ohaegbulam KC, Assal A, Lazar-Molnar E, et al.
- What it means: One of the most cited reviews Europe PMC returns for PD-L1 in Bladder & urothelial cancer, so it is a natural first reading for anyone weighing the idea it is linked from. The record was linked automatically by title and abstract; read the abstract above and the paper itself before relying on any figure.
- Caveats: Matched by PD-L1 in the title and Bladder & urothelial cancer in the title or abstract of the Europe PMC record; the summary reproduces the record's abstract and no figure has been verified against the full paper.; A review summarises other studies; the primary reports it cites are the evidence.

## Sources

- Trends Mol Med 2015: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molmed.2014.10.009
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25440090/
- Europe PMC: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/25440090

## Connected records

- ideas: [Anchor a TGF-beta trap in the tumour stroma so it cannot act everywhere](https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-bio2-tumour-anchored-tgfbeta-trap/)

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