Gomes, Anita Q.Correia, Daniel V.Silva-Santos, Bruno2021-07-272021-07-272007EMBO Rep. 2007 Nov;8(11):1024-10301469-221Xhttp://hdl.handle.net/10451/49170Copyright © 2007 European Molecular Biology OrganizationTumours develop in vertebrate organisms endowed with immune systems that are potentially able to eradicate them. Nevertheless, our ever-increasing understanding of the complex interactions between lymphocytes and tumour cells fuels the long-standing hope of developing efficient immunotherapies against cancer. This review focuses on a versatile family of proteins, the major histocompatibility complex class Ib, which has been recently implicated in both the establishment of anti-tumour immune responses and in tumour immune response evasion. We focus on a subset of class Ib proteins, human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-G, Qa-2, CD1d and NKG2D ligands, which bind to either stimulatory or inhibitory receptors expressed on T, natural killer (NK) and NKT lymphocytes, and thereby modulate their anti-tumour activity.engMHCCancerInnateLymphocyteNatural killerjournal article10.1038/sj.embor.74010901469-3178