With the burgeoning use of immune-based treatments for cancer, never has there been a greater need to understand the tumour microenvironment within which immune cells function and how it can be perturbed to inhibit tumour growth. Yet, current challenges in identifying optimal combinations of immunotherapies and engineering new cell-based therapies highlight the limitations of conventional paradigms for the study of the tumour microenvironment. Ecology has a rich history of studying predator–prey dynamics to discern factors that drive prey to extinction. Here, we describe the basic tenets of predator–prey theory as applied to ‘predation’ by immune cells and the ‘extinction’ of cancer cells. Our synthesis reveals fundamental mechanisms by which antitumour immunity might fail in sometimes counterintuitive ways and provides a fresh yet evidence-based framework to better understand and therapeutically target the immune–cancer interface.

随着基于免疫的癌症治疗的蓬勃发展，人们比以往任何时候都更需要了解免疫细胞在其中发挥作用的肿瘤微环境，以及如何扰乱它来抑制肿瘤生长。然而，当前在确定免疫疗法和设计新的基于细胞的疗法的最佳组合方面的挑战突出了肿瘤微环境研究的传统范式的局限性。生态学在研究捕食者-猎物动态以辨别导致猎物灭绝的因素方面有着丰富的历史。在这里，我们描述了适用于免疫细胞“捕食”和癌细胞“灭绝”的捕食者-猎物理论的基本原则。