Intratumoral Three-Cell-Type Clusters Are a Conserved Feature of Endogenous Antitumor Immunity.

ABSTRACT: Effective antitumor immunity ultimately depends on the priming and activation of tumor-specific cytotoxic CD8+ T cells; however, the role of intratumoral cell-cell immune interactions remains incompletely understood. Recent work has revealed that the temporospatial co-localization of dendritic cells (DC), T helper (Th) cells, and cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) within the tumor immune microenvironment following immune checkpoint blockade correlates with clinical response. In this study, we report the integration of more than 1 million spatially resolved single-cell profiles across six spatial proteomic and transcriptomic assays, which demonstrated that DC:Th:CTL three-cell-type clusters were common even in immunotherapy-naïve and highly desmoplastic tumors, such as fibrolamellar carcinoma an

SUBMITTER: Damle SR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12707859 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature