Project description:Immune cell interactions with tumor cells are critical for cancer therapeutic response, but it is unclear whether T cells take a direct or random path into a tumor. We performed 3D, long-term imaging of zebrafish melanomas and found that CD8+ T cells localize to craters on the tumor surface. Craters are the primary site of CD8 T cells accumulation and activation following CpG oligonucleotide injection, TLR agonists that elicit an immune response, or systemic TGF-β inhibition. Human melanomas exhibit craters at the tumor surface and in perivascular spaces where they harbor dysfunctional, proliferative CD8+ T cells. In both zebrafish and human tumors, crater size and number positively correlate with CD8+ T cell infiltration. These results identify craters as hubs that provide a direct path for CD8+ T cells into tumors.
Project description:Immune cell interactions with tumor cells are critical for cancer therapeutic response, but it is unclear whether T cells take a direct or random path into a tumor. We performed 3D, long-term imaging of zebrafish melanomas and found that CD8+ T cells localize to craters on the tumor surface. Craters are the primary site of CD8 T cells accumulation and activation following CpG oligonucleotide injection, TLR agonists that elicit an immune response, or systemic TGF-β inhibition. Human melanomas exhibit craters at the tumor surface and in perivascular spaces where they harbor dysfunctional, proliferative CD8+ T cells. In both zebrafish and human tumors, crater size and number positively correlate with CD8+ T cell infiltration. These results identify craters as hubs that provide a direct path for CD8+ T cells into tumors.
Project description:Adoptive T-cell Therapy (ACT) involves using tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) isolated from metastatic melanoma and expanding them ex vivo prior to infusion into lympho-depleted patients. This is one of the most promising approaches to treat metastatic melanoma, with the rates of clinical response between 48-50% based on studies done at NCI, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (Houston, TX), and Sheba Medical Center (Tel Aviv, Israel). In the Phase II ACT Trial at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center , our group has uncovered an association between positive clinical response and the amount of CD8+ tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes expressing B and T Lymphocyte Attenuator (BTLA), a reported inhibitory receptor on T-cells. We used microarrays to detail the differences in the global programme of gene expression between CD8+BTLA+ vs CD8+BTLA- TILs in order to understand the molecular basis of the clinical association. TILs were isolated by enzymatically digest the melanoma tumor fragments obtained from Stage IIIc/IV melanoma patients at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. The TILs were expanded with high-dose IL-2 for two weeks prior to sorting by FACS (fluoresecence-activated cell sorter) for CD8+BTLA+ and CD8+BTLA- susbets. RNA was extracted from each sorted subsets and hybridized on Affymetrix microarrays
Project description:The optimal T cell attributes for the adoptive immunotherapy of cancer and viral diseases are currently unclear. Recent adoptive transfer clinical trials using ex vivo expanded tumor infiltrating lymphocytes has provided evidence that differentiated effector T cells can mediate durable responses in selected cancer patients. The capacity of these transferred cells to persist in the host was found to strongly correlate with their clinical activity. Thus, there is significant interest in identifying intrinsic markers that define antigen specific effector T cells that can develop into long-lived memory cells rather than undergoing apoptosis after infusion in humans. We recently reported the long term persistence of ex vivo expanded tumor specific CD8+ T effector clones in refractory metastatic melanoma patients after adoptive T cell transfer. By utilizing these highly homogeneous clone populations, we sought to define the pre-infusion cellular and molecular attributes associated with their effector to memory transition. Comparative transcriptional profiling found the pre-infusion clone mRNA expression levels of the IL-7 receptor (IL-7Ra) and the proto-oncogene, c-myc, directly correlated with the level of clonal persistence after adoptive transfer in humans. The predictive value of these markers was further established by utilizing IL-7R protein, induced pSTAT5, and c-myc mRNA expression to prospectively identify human tumor specific effector clones that could engraft after controlled adoptive transfer into highly immunodeficient mice. These findings support that IL-7R and c-myc expression are valuable cell intrinsic markers that can predict the fate of effector CD8+ T cells after adoptive transfer. We used microarrays to compare the pre-infusion gene expression profile of melanoma-specific CD8+ T cell clones that would eventually either persist or not after adoptive transfer in humans. We derived ten melanoma-specific CD8+ T cell clones and determined their degree of persistence after adoptive therapy into patients. We performed microarray on the pre-infusion samples of six persisting and four non-persisting clones to obtain a comparative gene signature profile.
Project description:This study elucidates the effect of the E2F1-regulated melanoma-secreted factors on the phenotype and transcriptional program of immune cells (CD4+ T and CD8+ T cells) in the melanoma immune microenvironment. In order to determine the immune modulatory effect of the secretome on immune cells, we established a co-culture system where different melanoma cell lines (high-E2F1/invasive and low E2F1/non-invasive) were co-cultured with CD4+ or CD8+ T cells without direct interaction. These data describe the transcriptomes of immune cells and for the two melanoma cell lines Mel147 and C8161, both in co- and monoculture condition, with stable E2F1 knockdowns and corresponding controls.
Project description:CD8+ T cells are the primary target of immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy in the treatment of melanoma. ICI therapy only benefits a subset of patients and complicating this issue is a reliable prediction method that does not require invasive biopsies. In the hope of remedying this challenge, we conducted single-cell transcriptomic analyses of CD8+ T cells in peripheral blood lymphocytes (CD8-mPBLs) and, importantly, tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (CD8-mTILs) from 8 patients with metastatic melanoma.