RESUMO
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major health problem around the world and its morbidity is increasing year by year. HCC has a low rate of early diagnosis and advanced HCC has a low survival rate. Therefore, the diagnosis and treatment of HCC has attracted great attention, and tumor specific T cell immunity plays an important role in it. This article describes the immunological characteristics of seven HCC-associated antigen specific T cells, i.e., alpha fetal protein, phosphatidylinositol proteoglycan-3, NY-ESO-1, SSX-2, melanoma antigen gene A, telomerase reverse transcriptase, and HCC-associated antigen-519/target protein xklp-2, and analyzes the possible mechanisms which affect antigen specific T cell immunity from the aspects of regulatory T cells, myeloid-derived suppressor cells, antigen presenting and processing, inhibitory receptors, and CD4+T cells.