Sun W, Wang X, Wang D, Lu L, Lin H, Zhang Z, Jia Y, Nie X, Liu T, Fu W. CD40×HER2 bispecific antibody overcomes the CCL2-induced trastuzumab resistance in HER2-positive gastric cancer.
J Immunother Cancer 2022;
10:jitc-2022-005063. [PMID:
35851310 PMCID:
PMC9295658 DOI:
10.1136/jitc-2022-005063]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 06/21/2022] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
Background
There was much hard work to study the trastuzumab resistance in HER2-positive gastric cancer (GC), but the information which would reveal this abstruse mechanism is little. In this study, we aimed to investigate the roles of tumor cell-derived CCL2 on trastuzumab resistance and overcome the resistance by treatment with the anti-CD40-scFv-linked anti-HER2 (CD40 ×HER2) bispecific antibody (bsAb).
Methods
We measured the levels of CCL2 expression in HER2-positive GC tissues, and revealed biological functions of tumor cell-derived CCL2 on tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) and the trastuzumab resistance. Then, we developed CD40 ×HER2 bsAb, and examined the targeting roles on HER2 and CD40, to overcome the trastuzumab resistance without systemic toxicity.
Results
We found the level of CCL2 expression in HER2-postive GC was correlated with infiltration of TAMs, polarization status of infiltrated TAMs, trastuzumab resistance and survival outcomes of GC patients. On exposure to CCL2, TAMs decreased the M1-like phenotype, thereby eliciting the trastuzumab resistance. CCL2 activated the transcription of ZC3H12A, which increased K63-linked deubiquitination and K48-linked auto-ubiquitination of TRAF6/3 to inactivate NF-κB signaling in TAMs. CD40 ×HER2 bsAb, which targeted the CD40 to restore the ubiquitination level of TRAF6/3, increased the M1-like phenotypic transformation of TAMs, and overcame trastuzumab resistance without immune-related adversary effects (irAEs).
Conclusions
We revealed a novel mechanism of trastuzumab resistance in HER2-positive GC via the CCL2-ZC3H12A-TRAF6/3 signaling axis, and presented a CD40 ×HER2 bsAb which showed great antitumor efficacy with few irAEs.
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