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Wang C, Chen L, Fu D, Liu W, Puri A, Kellis M, Yang J. Antigen presenting cells in cancer immunity and mediation of immune checkpoint blockade. Clin Exp Metastasis 2024; 41:333-349. [PMID: 38261139 PMCID: PMC11374820 DOI: 10.1007/s10585-023-10257-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2023] [Accepted: 12/06/2023] [Indexed: 01/24/2024]
Abstract
Antigen-presenting cells (APCs) are pivotal mediators of immune responses. Their role has increasingly been spotlighted in the realm of cancer immunology, particularly as our understanding of immunotherapy continues to evolve and improve. There is growing evidence that these cells play a non-trivial role in cancer immunity and have roles dependent on surface markers, growth factors, transcription factors, and their surrounding environment. The main dendritic cell (DC) subsets found in cancer are conventional DCs (cDC1 and cDC2), monocyte-derived DCs (moDC), plasmacytoid DCs (pDC), and mature and regulatory DCs (mregDC). The notable subsets of monocytes and macrophages include classical and non-classical monocytes, macrophages, which demonstrate a continuum from a pro-inflammatory (M1) phenotype to an anti-inflammatory (M2) phenotype, and tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs). Despite their classification in the same cell type, each subset may take on an immune-activating or immunosuppressive phenotype, shaped by factors in the tumor microenvironment (TME). In this review, we introduce the role of DCs, monocytes, and macrophages and recent studies investigating them in the cancer immunity context. Additionally, we review how certain characteristics such as abundance, surface markers, and indirect or direct signaling pathways of DCs and macrophages may influence tumor response to immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy. We also highlight existing knowledge gaps regarding the precise contributions of different myeloid cell subsets in influencing the response to ICB therapy. These findings provide a summary of our current understanding of myeloid cells in mediating cancer immunity and ICB and offer insight into alternative or combination therapies that may enhance the success of ICB in cancers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cassia Wang
- Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Lee Chen
- Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Doris Fu
- Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Wendi Liu
- Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Anusha Puri
- Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Manolis Kellis
- Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA
| | - Jiekun Yang
- Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
- Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, USA.
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Leong SP. Immune responses and immunotherapeutic approaches in the treatment against cancer. Clin Exp Metastasis 2024; 41:473-493. [PMID: 39155358 PMCID: PMC11374840 DOI: 10.1007/s10585-024-10300-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/04/2024] [Accepted: 06/15/2024] [Indexed: 08/20/2024]
Abstract
Cancer cells within a population are heterogeneous due to genomic mutations or epigenetic changes. The immune response to cancer especially the T cell repertoire within the cancer microenvionment is important to the control and growth of cancer cells. When a cancer clone breaks through the surveillance of the immune system, it wins the battle to overcome the host's immune system. In this review, the complicated profile of the cancer microenvironment is emphasized. The molecular evidence of immune responses to cancer has been recently established. Based on these molecular mechanisms of immune interactions with cancer, clinical trials based on checkpoint inhibition therapy against CTLA-4 and/or PD-1 versus PD-L1 have been successful in the treatment of melanoma, lung cancer and other types of cancer. The diversity of the T cell repertoire is described and the tumor infiltrating lymphocytes within the cancer may be expanded ex vivo and infused back to the patient as a treatment modality for adoptive immunotherapy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stanley P Leong
- California Pacific Medical Center and Research Institute, University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco, USA.
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Moutafi MK, Bates KM, Aung TN, Milian RG, Xirou V, Vathiotis IA, Gavrielatou N, Angelakis A, Schalper KA, Salichos L, Rimm DL. High-throughput transcriptome profiling indicates ribosomal RNAs to be associated with resistance to immunotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). J Immunother Cancer 2024; 12:e009039. [PMID: 38857914 PMCID: PMC11168162 DOI: 10.1136/jitc-2024-009039] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 05/27/2024] [Indexed: 06/12/2024] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Despite the impressive outcomes with immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), only a minority of the patients show long-term benefits from ICI. In this study, we used retrospective cohorts of ICI treated patients with NSCLC to discover and validate spatially resolved protein markers associated with resistance to programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) axis inhibition. METHODS Pretreatment samples from 56 patients with NSCLC treated with ICI were collected and analyzed in a tissue microarray (TMA) format in including four different tumor regions per patient using the GeoMx platform for spatially informed transcriptomics. 34 patients had assessable tissue with tumor compartment in all 4 TMA spots, 22 with leukocyte compartment and 12 with CD68 compartment. The patients' tissue that was not assessable in fourfold redundancy in each compartment was designated as the validation cohort; cytokeratin (CK) (N=22), leukocytes CD45 (N=31), macrophages, CD68 (N=43). The human whole transcriptome, represented by~18,000 individual genes assessed by oligonucleotide-tagged in situ hybridization, was sequenced on the NovaSeq platform to quantify the RNAs present in each region of interest. RESULTS 54,000 gene variables were generated per case, from them 25,740 were analyzed after removing targets with expression lower than a prespecified frequency. Cox proportional-hazards model analysis was performed for overall and progression-free survival (OS, PFS, respectively). After identifying genes significantly associated with limited survival benefit (HR>1)/progression per spot per patient, we used the intersection of them across the four TMA spots per patient. This resulted in a list of 12 genes in the tumor-cell compartment (RPL13A, GNL3, FAM83A, CYBA, ACSL4, SLC25A6, EPAS1, RPL5, APOL1, HSPD1, RPS4Y1, ADI1). RPL13A, GNL3 in tumor-cell compartment were also significantly associated with OS and PFS, respectively, in the validation cohort (CK: HR, 2.48; p=0.02 and HR, 5.33; p=0.04). In CD45 compartment, secreted frizzled-related protein 2, was associated with OS in the discovery cohort but not in the validation cohort. Similarly, in the CD68 compartment ARHGAP and PNN interacting serine and arginine rich protein were significantly associated with PFS and OS, respectively, in the majority but not all four spots per patient. CONCLUSION This work highlights RPL13A and GNL3 as potential indicative biomarkers of resistance to PD-1 axis blockade that might help to improve precision immunotherapy strategies for lung cancer.
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Affiliation(s)
- Myrto K Moutafi
- Department of Pathology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
| | - Katherine M Bates
- Department of Pathology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
| | - Thazin Nwe Aung
- Department of Pathology, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
- Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
| | - Rolando Garcia Milian
- Bioinformatics Support Program, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
| | - Vasiliki Xirou
- Department of Pathology, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
- Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
| | - Ioannis A Vathiotis
- Department of Pathology, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
| | - Niki Gavrielatou
- Department of Pathology, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
- Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
| | - Athanasios Angelakis
- Epidemiology and Data Science, Amsterdam UMC Locatie AMC, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Department of Methodology, Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Kurt A Schalper
- Department of Pathology, Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
| | - Leonidas Salichos
- Biomedical Data Science Center Director, Center for Cancer Research, Department of Computational Biology at New York Institute of Technology, New York Institute of Technology, Old Westbury, New York, USA
| | - David L Rimm
- Department of Pathology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
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