Project description:Cytotoxic cells (T CD8+ cells and NK cells) are the primary executors of tumour cell killing. However, not all cells are equally prone to kill. Within circulating lymphocytes, certain gene expression patterns may better prepare immune cells to attack.Upon co-culture with tumour cells, cytotoxic cells will undergo a process known as degranulation, which is based on the release of lysosomal-like structures, cytotoxic granules, that contain proteins specialized on disturbing tumour cell membrane integrity. This results in the killing of tumour cells. Cytolytic granules are decorated with lysosomal proteins such as the lysosome-associated membrane proteins (LAMP) family members, which in basal conditions are restricted to lysosomal compartments. Upon fusion of cytolytic granules with the cell membrane, such proteins become transitorily enriched and available to antibodies. This can be used as a tool to distinguish and sort out cell populations that have been recently activated.In our project, we use LAMP1 as a marker of NK cell activation upon challenge with tumour cells. We make use of this strategy to select which cells are better equipped to get activated, and what are the underlying transcriptional signatures involved in this phenotype. In this project we aim to identify intrinsic modulators of cytotoxic cell activation. To this end, we have the following objectives:- Definition of the NK cell activation priming signature in basal conditions.- Comparison of transcriptional signatures following treatment with stimulatory/inhibitory cytokines and the combination of both.- Uncovering new potential targets for immune therapy. - Analysis of the resulting data from the RNAseq to define the transcriptional signature of activated cells, perform gene set enrichment analysis, identification of enriched pathways and getting insight on the ups-tream regulators of the gene signatures.- Confirmation of hits in primary cells and generation of genetically modified NK cell lines/inhibitors/activators to challenge protein function.- Mechanistic study of protein hits.- TCGA study for relevance in cancer indications.- (If established) Parallel NGS study with T CD8+ cells.- Writing a manuscript containing main findings for the NK cells hits, and potentially for the T CD8+ cell study.

Project description:Myeloid dendritic cells (DC) and macrophages play an important role in pathogen sensing and antimicrobial defense. Recently we demonstrated that infection of human DC with intracellular bacterium Listeria monocytogenes (L.monocytogenes) leads to the induction of the immunoinhibitory enzyme indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (Popov et al., J Clin Invest, 2006), while in the previous studies L.monocytogenes infection was associated with a rather stimulatory DC phenotype. To clarify this discrepancy we performed comparative microarray analysis of immature mo-DC (immDC), mature stimulatory mo-DC (matDC) and mature inhibitory DC either stimulated with prostaglandin E2 (PGE2-DC) or infected with L.monocytogenes (infDC). Studying infection of human myeloid DC with Listeria monocytogenes, we found out, that infected DC are modified by the pathogen to express multiple inhibitory molecules, including indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), cyclooxygenase-2, interleukin 10 and CD25, which acts on DC as IL-2 scavenger. All these inhibitory molecules, expressed on regulatory DC (DCreg), are strictly TNF-dependent and are in concert suppressing T-cell responses. Moreover, only DCreg can efficiently control the number of intracellular listeria, mostly by IDO-mediated mechanisms and by other factors, remaining to be identified. Analyzing publicly acessible data of transcriptional changes in DC and macrophages, infected by various pathogens and parasites (GEO, GSE360), we noticed that infection of these cells with Mycobacterium tuberculosis causes transcriptional response, comparable with the one caused by listeria in human DC. In fact, granuloma in tuberculosis and listeriosis in vivo are enriched for myeloid DC and macrophages characterized by regulatory phenotype. In summary, regulatory myeloid DC and macrophages may play a dual role during life-threatening granulomatous infections, such as tuberculosis: on one hand, regulatory myeloid cells promote pathogen containment by efficiently killing intracellular bacteria, on the other hand these cells inhibit granuloma-associated T cells and thereby might be involved in the retention of TNF-controlled granuloma integrity protecting the host from granuloma break-down and pathogen dissemination. Experiment Overall Design: Transcriptional profiles of immature mo-DC (immDC, n=3), mature stimulatory mo-DC (matDC, n=3) and mature inhibitory mo-DC either stimulated with prostaglandin E2 (PGE2-DC, n=3) or infected with L.monocytogenes (infDC, n=3) were compared on Affymetrix HG-U133A platform. All samples represent biological replicates and were processed separately throughout the experiment.

Project description:Dozens of transplants generated from pluripotent stem cells are currently in clinical trials. The creation of patient-specific iPSCs makes personalized therapy possible due to their main advantage of immunotolerance. However, some reports have claimed recently that aberrant gene expression followed by proteome alterations and neoantigen formation can result in iPSCs recognition by autologous T-cells. Meanwhile, the possibility of NK-cell activation has not been previously considered. This study focused on the comparison of autologous and allogeneic immune response to iPSC-derived cells and isogeneic parental somatic cells used for reprogramming. Here we report that cells differentiated from iPSCs can be recognized by NK-cells rather than by autologous T-cells. We observed that iPS-fibro elicited a high level of NK-cell degranulation and cytotoxicity, while isogeneic parental skin fibroblasts used to obtain iPSCs barely triggered an NK-cell response. iPSC-derivatives with B2M knockout did not cause an additional increase in NK-cell activation, although they were devoid of HLA-I, the major inhibitory molecules for NK-cells. Transcriptome analysis revealed a significant imbalance of ligands for activating and inhibitory NK-cell receptors in iPS-fibro. Compared to parental fibroblasts, iPSC-derivatives had a reduced expression of HLA-I simultaneously with an increased gene expression of major activating ligands, such as MICA, NECTIN2, and PVR. The lack of inhibitory signals might be due to insufficient maturity of cells differentiated from iPSCs. In addition, we showed that pretreatment of iPS-fibro with proinflammatory cytokine IFNγ restored the ligand imbalance, thereby reducing the degranulation and cytotoxicity of NK-cells. In summary, we showed that iPSC-derived cells can be sensitive to the cytotoxic potential of autologous NK-cells regardless of HLA-I status. Thus, the balance of ligands for NK-cell receptors should be considered prior to iPSC-based cell therapies.

Project description:Myeloid dendritic cells (DC) and macrophages play an important role in pathogen sensing and antimicrobial defense. Recently we demonstrated that infection of human DC with intracellular bacterium Listeria monocytogenes (L.monocytogenes) leads to the induction of the immunoinhibitory enzyme indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (Popov et al., J Clin Invest, 2006), while in the previous studies L.monocytogenes infection was associated with a rather stimulatory DC phenotype. To clarify this discrepancy we performed comparative microarray analysis of immature mo-DC (immDC), mature stimulatory mo-DC (matDC) and mature inhibitory DC either stimulated with prostaglandin E2 (PGE2-DC) or infected with L.monocytogenes (infDC). Studying infection of human myeloid DC with Listeria monocytogenes, we found out, that infected DC are modified by the pathogen to express multiple inhibitory molecules, including indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO), cyclooxygenase-2, interleukin 10 and CD25, which acts on DC as IL-2 scavenger. All these inhibitory molecules, expressed on regulatory DC (DCreg), are strictly TNF-dependent and are in concert suppressing T-cell responses. Moreover, only DCreg can efficiently control the number of intracellular listeria, mostly by IDO-mediated mechanisms and by other factors, remaining to be identified. Analyzing publicly acessible data of transcriptional changes in DC and macrophages, infected by various pathogens and parasites (GEO, GSE360), we noticed that infection of these cells with Mycobacterium tuberculosis causes transcriptional response, comparable with the one caused by listeria in human DC. In fact, granuloma in tuberculosis and listeriosis in vivo are enriched for myeloid DC and macrophages characterized by regulatory phenotype. In summary, regulatory myeloid DC and macrophages may play a dual role during life-threatening granulomatous infections, such as tuberculosis: on one hand, regulatory myeloid cells promote pathogen containment by efficiently killing intracellular bacteria, on the other hand these cells inhibit granuloma-associated T cells and thereby might be involved in the retention of TNF-controlled granuloma integrity protecting the host from granuloma break-down and pathogen dissemination. Keywords: Cell type comparison, response to infection

Project description:Previous research on adaptive NK cells in rhesus macaques suffered from the lack of specific antibodies to differentiate between inhibitory CD94/NKG2A and stimulatory CD94/NKG2C heterodimeric receptors. Recently we reported an expansion of NKG2C receptor-encoding genes in rhesus macaques, but their expression and functional role on primary NK cells remained unknown due to this deficit. Thus, we established monoclonal antibodies 4A8 and 7B1 which show identical specificities and bind to both NKG2C-1 and NKG2C-2 but neither react with NKG2C-3 nor NKG2A on transfected cell lines. Using a combination of 4A8 and Z199 antibodies in multicolor flow cytometry we detected broad expression (4-73%) of NKG2C-1 and/or NKG2C-2 (NKG2C-1/2) on primary NK cells in rhesus macaques from our breeding colony. Stratifying our data to CMV-positive and CMV-negative animals, we noticed a higher proportion (23-73%) in primary NK cells expressing NKG2C-1/2 in CMV+ as compared to CMV- macaques (4-5%). These NKG2C-1/2-positive NK cells in CMV+ macaques are characterized by lower expression of IL12RB2, ZBTB16 and SH2D1B as well as high expression of IFN-gamma, indicating that antibody 4A8 detects CMV-associated adaptive NK cells. Single cell RNA seq data of 4A8-positive NK cells from a CMV-positive individual demonstrated that a high proportion of these adaptive NK cells transcribe in addition to NKG2C-1/2 also NKG2C-3, but interestingly NKG2A as well. Remarkably, NKG2C-1 and in particular NKG2C-2 have a higher affinity to Mamu-E as compared to NKG2A. Primary NK cells exposed to Mamu-E-expressing target cells displayed strong degranulation as well as IFN-gamma expression of 4A8+ adaptive NK cells of rhCMV+ animals that was not evident in rhCMV- animals. Thus, despite co-expression of inhibitory and stimulatory CD94/NKG2 receptors the higher number of different stimulatory NKG2C receptors and their higher binding avidity to Mamu-E outreach inhibitory signaling via NKG2A. These data demonstrate the evolutionary conservation of the CMV-driven development of NKG2C-positive adaptive NK cells with particular molecular signatures in primates and with changes in gene copy numbers and regulation and in ligand binding strength of NKG2C isotypes. Thus, rhesus macaques represent a suitable and valuable nonhuman primate animal model to study the CMV-NKG2C liaison in vivo.

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RNA-seq of degranulating and non-degranulating NK cells under inhibitory and stimulatory treatment

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