Figure 1.

Combined use of chemotherapy and antibodies in the treatment of colorectal cancer. Antibodies can have different functions by targeting different tumor antigens. Some of them, such as immune checkpoint inhibitors (A) such as anti-PD-1 Ab and anti-CTLA-4 Ab, increase the response of immune cells, and some, by targeting a specific antigen (B), leading to the activation of ADCC or CDC. Chemotherapy can lead to apoptosis of tumor cells and the release of various types of antigens derived from tumor cells (C). On the one hand, the release of these antigens leads to an increase in the maturation of antigen-presenting cells. On the other hand, using immune checkpoint inhibitors leads to activating more immune system cells to deal with the tumor. In fact, these types of therapeutic compounds affect the tumor from different pathways and do not allow tumor recurrence after radiation or chemotherapy to the tumor cells. ADCC, Antibody-dependent cell cytotoxicity; CDC, Complement-dependent cell cytotoxicity.