Project description:Immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment, but many cancers are not impacted by currently available immunotherapeutic strategies. Here, we investigated inflammatory signaling pathways in neuroblastoma, a classically “cold” pediatric cancer. By testing the functional response of a panel of 20 diverse neuroblastoma cell lines to three different inflammatory stimuli, we found that all cell lines have intact interferon signaling and all but one lack functional cytosolic DNA sensing via cGAS-STING. However, dsRNA sensing via TLR3 was heterogeneous, as was signaling through other dsRNA sensors and TLRs more broadly. Seven cell lines showed robust response to dsRNA, six of which are in the mesenchymal epigenetic state, while all unresponsive cell lines are in the adrenergic state. Genetically switching adrenergic cell lines towards the mesenchymal state fully restored responsiveness. In responsive cells, dsRNA sensing results in the secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines, enrichment of inflammatory transcriptomic signatures, and increased tumor killing by T cells in vitro. Using single cell RNA sequencing data, we show that human neuroblastoma cells with stronger mesenchymal signatures have a higher basal inflammatory state, demonstrating intra tumoral heterogeneity in inflammatory signaling that has significant implications for immunotherapeutic strategies in this aggressive childhood cancer.
Project description:Immunotherapy has revolutionized cancer treatment, but many cancers are not impacted by currently available immunotherapeutic strategies. Here, we investigated inflammatory signaling pathways in neuroblastoma, a classically “cold” pediatric cancer. By testing the functional response of a panel of 20 diverse neuroblastoma cell lines to three different inflammatory stimuli, we found that all cell lines have intact interferon signaling and all but one lack functional cytosolic DNA sensing via cGAS-STING. However, dsRNA sensing via TLR3 was heterogeneous, as was signaling through other dsRNA sensors and TLRs more broadly. Seven cell lines showed robust response to dsRNA, six of which are in the mesenchymal epigenetic state, while all unresponsive cell lines are in the adrenergic state. Genetically switching adrenergic cell lines towards the mesenchymal state fully restored responsiveness. In responsive cells, dsRNA sensing results in the secretion of pro-inflammatory cytokines, enrichment of inflammatory transcriptomic signatures, and increased tumor killing by T cells in vitro. Using single cell RNA sequencing data, we show that human neuroblastoma cells with stronger mesenchymal signatures have a higher basal inflammatory state, demonstrating intra tumoral heterogeneity in inflammatory signaling that has significant implications for immunotherapeutic strategies in this aggressive childhood cancer.
Project description:Phagocytes in different tissues recognize and remove apoptotic cells via the process of efferocytosis. Although it is well-established that efferocytosis elicits an anti-inflammatory response by phagocytes, the molecules and mechanisms that enforce this response in phagocytes are still being defined. In attempting to decipher gene programs induced after a phagocyte ingests a dying cell, we uncovered a chloride-sensing signaling pathway that controls both the ‘appetite’ of a phagocyte and how a phagocyte responds after corpse uptake. First, we noted that within phagocytes that have ingested a corpse, the solute carrier 12 (SLC12) family members SLC12A2 and SLC12A4 are actively modulated. Interfering with SLC12A2, either genetically or pharmacologically, led to significantly enhanced corpse uptake per phagocyte, while loss of SLC12A4 inhibited corpse uptake. Interestingly, when phagocytes with disrupted SLC12A2 engulfed apoptotic corpses, the typical homeostatic efferocytosis signature was perturbed, characterized by loss of the canonical anti-inflammatory program and replaced by pro-inflammatory and oxidative stress-associated gene programs. In further mechanistic studies, we observed efferocytosis was also regulated by the chloride-sensing pathway upstream of SLC12A2, including the kinases WNK1-OSR1-SPAK, and this involved chloride entry/exit across the plasma membrane of phagocytes during corpse engulfment. We also show that the ‘switch’ to pro-inflammatory sensing of apoptotic cells is specifically due to disruption of the chloride-sensing pathway and not due to corpse overload or poor degradation, and that the pro-inflammatory gene signature can be reversed using a chloride ionophore. Collectively, these data identify the WNK1-OSR1-SPAK-SLC12A2/SLC12A4 chloride-sensing pathway and chloride flux in phagocytes as key modifiers of how a phagocyte interprets an engulfed apoptotic corpse.
Project description:Childhood neuroblastomas exhibit plasticity between an undifferentiated neural crest-like “mesenchymal” cell state and a more differentiated sympathetic “adrenergic” cell state. These cell states are governed by autoregulatory transcriptional loops called core regulatory circuitries (CRCs), which drive the early development of sympathetic neuronal progenitors from migratory neural crest cells during embryogenesis. The adrenergic cell identity of neuroblastoma requires LMO1 as a transcriptional co-factor. Both LMO1 expression levels and the risk of developing neuroblastoma in children are associated with a single nucleotide polymorphism G/T that affects a GATA motif in the first intron of LMO1. Here we showed that wild-type zebrafish with the GATA genotype developed adrenergic neuroblastoma, while knock-in of the protective TATA allele at this locus reduced the penetrance of MYCN-driven tumors, which were restricted to the mesenchymal cell state. Whole genome sequencing of childhood neuroblastomas demonstrated that TATA/TATA tumors also exhibited a mesenchymal cell state and were low risk at diagnosis. Thus, conversion of the regulatory GATA to a TATA allele in the first intron of LMO1 reduced the neuroblastoma initiation rate by preventing formation of the adrenergic cell state, a mechanism that was conserved over 400 million years of evolution separating zebrafish and humans.