Project description:Immunotherapeutics represent highly promising agents with the potential to improve patient outcomes in a variety of cancer types. Unfortunately, single-agent immunotherapy has achieved limited clinical benefit to date in patients suffering from pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). This may be due to the presence of a uniquely immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) present in PDACs, which creates a barrier to effective immune surveillance. Critical obstacles to immunotherapy in PDAC tumors include the dense desmoplastic stroma that acts as a barrier to T-cell infiltration and the high numbers of tumor-associated immunosuppressive cells. We have identified hyperactivated focal adhesion kinase (FAK) activity in neoplastic PDAC cells as a significant regulator of the fibrotic and immunosuppressive TME. We found that FAK activity was elevated in human PDAC tissues and correlates with high levels of fibrosis and poor CD8+ cytotoxic T-cell infiltration. Single-agent FAK inhibition (VS-4718) dramatically limited tumor progression, resulting in a doubling of survival in the p48-Cre/LSL-KrasG12D/p53Flox/+ (KPC) mouse model of human PDAC. This alteration in tumor progression was associated with dramatically reduced tumor fibrosis, decreased numbers of tumor-infiltrating immature myeloid cells and immunosuppressive macrophages. We postulated that these desirable effects of FAK inhibition on the TME might render PDAC tumors more sensitive to immunotherapy. Accordingly, we found that VS-4718 rendered the previously unresponsive KPC mouse model responsive to anti-PD1 and anti-CTLA4 antagonists leading to a nearly tripling of survival times. These data suggest that FAK inhibition increases immune surveillance by overcoming the fibrotic and immunosuppressive PDAC TME thus rendering tumors more responsive to immunotherapy. We treated KP orthotopic tumor-bearing mice with vehicle and FAK inhibitor (FAKi) for 14 days, then extracted total RNA from tumor tissues.

Project description:Intratumoral microglia and MΦ constitute up to 70% of the tumor mass of high-grade gliomas (HGG) with profound impact on hallmarks of malignancy such as angiogenesis and immunosuppression. The dynamics and functional states of intratumoral myeloid cells during tumor progression and the molecular mechanisms controlling them are poorly understood. Here we define homeostatic and antigen-presenting myeloid cellular states in experimental and human HGG by longitudinal single-cell RNA-sequencing and combined transcriptome and proteome profiling. During glioma progression, myeloid cells gradually shift from a homeostatic to a tumor-associated effector state. We show that these dynamics are under strict control by early changes in resident microglia and the tumor genotype: In gliomas with mutations in isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH), a disease-defining driver mutation, differentiation of invaded myeloid cells was blocked resulting in an immature, immunosuppressive phenotype. In late-stage IDH-mutant gliomas, monocyte-derived MΦ drive a tolerogenic remodeling of the glioma microenvironment thus preventing T-cell response. We define the molecular mechanism responsible for the tumor genotype-dependent education of infiltrating MΦ to be causally related to an enzymatically enhanced tryptophan catabolism via TDO2, resulting in the production of kynurenine, an endogenous ligand of the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR). TDO2 activation further induces an amino acid starvation response triggering the import of exogenous tryptophan by intratumoral MΦ via LAT1-CD98. We here provide evidence that paracrine R-2-HG and tryptophan are critically involved in the differentiation and activation of monocyte-derived MΦ and that the previously observed altered amino acid metabolism in IDHmut gliomas is also responsible for shaping an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment through maintenance of this complex metabolic axis. We further show that this regulatory metabolic network is particularly active in infiltrating MΦ because of their distinct expression profile that constitutes an immune subset-specific metabolic vulnerability. Consequently, the immunosuppressive phenotype in IDH-mutant glioma models was reversed by pharmacological inhibition of LAT1-CD98 or AHR. Thus, we provide evidence for a tumor genotype-dependent, dynamic network of resident and recruited intratumoral myeloid cells that shape the immune microenvironment of IDH-mutant HGG through pleiotropic interaction with the tumor metabolome and identify tryptophan metabolism as a viable therapeutic target for the immunotherapy of IDH-mutant tumors.

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Tumor-associated Schwann cells Expressing LncRNAs Direct Immune Resistant Metabolic Microenvironment

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