Carcinogen exposure enhances cancer immunogenicity by blocking the development of an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment.

ABSTRACT: Carcinogen exposure is strongly associated with enhanced cancer immunogenicity. Increased tumor mutational burden and resulting neoantigen generation have been proposed to link carcinogen exposure and cancer immunogenicity. However, the neoantigen-independent immunological impact of carcinogen exposure on cancer is unknown. Here, we demonstrate that chemical carcinogen-exposed cancer cells fail to establish an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME), resulting in their T cell-mediated rejection in vivo. A chemical carcinogen-treated breast cancer cell clone that lacked any additional coding region mutations (i.e., neoantigen) was rejected in mice in a T cell-dependent manner. Strikingly, the coinjection of carcinogen- and control-treated cancer cells prevented this rejection, sugges

SUBMITTER: Huang M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10575722 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature