# IFNgamma and lymphocytes prevent primary tumour development and shape tumour immunogenicity

Source: https://onco.cc/key-papers/paper-shankaran-nature/  
OnCo record `paper-shankaran-nature` (Key paper). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Paper cited by one term page, indexed on Europe PMC as PubMed record 11323675 and published in Nature; the citing page links this DOI, which is how the record was matched.

## Summary

Lymphocytes were originally thought to form the basis of a 'cancer immunosurveillance' process that protects immunocompetent hosts against primary tumour development, but this idea was largely abandoned when no differences in primary tumour development were found between athymic nude mice and syngeneic wild-type mice. However, subsequent observations that nude mice do not completely lack functional T cells and that two components of the immune system-IFNgamma and perforin-help to prevent tumour formation in mice have led to renewed interest in a tumour-suppressor role for the immune response. Here we show that lymphocytes and IFNgamma collaborate to protect against development of carcinogen-induced sarcomas and spontaneous epithelial carcinomas and also to select for tumour cells with reduced immunogenicity. The immune response thus functions as an effective extrinsic tumour-suppressor system. However, this process also leads to the immunoselection of tumour cells that are more capable of surviving in an immunocompetent host, which explains the apparent paradox of tumour formation in immunologically intact individuals.

Indexed on Europe PMC as PubMed record 11323675 (DOI 10.1038/35074122). Matched by DOI alone: one term page cites this DOI among its external links (the pages are listed under Related), and this page was written so that the citation resolves inside OnCo. No figure has been checked by an editor.

## Fields

- Kind: Key paper
- Last checked: 2026-09-22
- Tags: europepmc-ingest
- Journal: Nature
- Year: 2001
- DOI: 10.1038/35074122
- Authors: Shankaran V, Ikeda H, Bruce AT, et al.
- What it means: One term page on OnCo cites this paper by its DOI; this record gives the citation a page of its own so a reader can follow it without leaving OnCo. Read the abstract above alongside the citing page listed under Related; the record was created automatically from the Europe PMC entry and its figures have not been checked by hand.
- Caveats: Matched to the citing OnCo records by DOI alone; the summary reproduces the Europe PMC abstract and no figure has been verified against the full paper.

## Sources

- Nature 2001: https://doi.org/10.1038/35074122
- PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11323675/
- Europe PMC: https://europepmc.org/article/MED/11323675

## Connected records

- terms: [Immune surveillance and cancer immunoediting](https://onco.cc/terms/immune-surveillance-immunoediting/)
- journals: [Nature](https://onco.cc/journals/nature/)

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