T cell exhaustion landscapes and therapeutic modulation in cancer immunity (opens in new tab)

T cell exhaustion is a central framework for explaining why antitumor T cell responses often fail despite persistent antigen exposure and immune infiltration. Rather than a single dysfunctional endpoint, exhaustion is increasingly understood as a structured and dynamic continuum of antigen-experienced CD8+ T cell states that differ in proliferative capacity, effector potential, epigenetic constraint, metabolic fitness, and spatial distribution within tumors. This view has major therapeutic im...