Congliang Chen, Xuetao Cao
The underlying mechanism of tumor microenvironment-induced dysfunction of conventional type 1 dendritic cells (cDC1) remains unclear. Zhang et al. identify transforming growth factor β-driven coactivator-associated arginine methyltransferase 1 (CARM1) as an epigenetic inhibitor of cDC1 cross-presentation. CARM1 is a cell-intrinsic brake, and its inhibition represents a multi-pronged tumor immunotherapy strategy.