Research progress on stimulator of interferon genes agonists for cancer immunotherapy

In recent years, tumor immunotherapy has become a new hot spot in the field of cancer treatment. Besides the great success of immunological checkpoint inhibitors and cellular immunotherapy, small molecule immunotherapy has also attracted more and more attention. As a key signal transduction molecule involved in the innate immune response, stimulator of interferon genes plays an important role in defending against viral and intracellular bacterial infections, mediating type I IFN production and regulating the production of spontaneous anti-tumor immune responses in vivo. This paper briefly introduces the biological mechanism of STING signaling pathway and reviews the research progress of STING agonists based on the structural classification, so as to provide some reference for the design and discovery of STING agonist drugs.