Cancer-specific type-I interferon receptor signaling promotes cancer stemness and effector CD8+ T-cell exhaustion

Autor: Wang Gong, Christopher R. Donnelly, Blake R. Heath, Emily Bellile, Lorenza A. Donnelly, Hülya F. Taner, Luke Broses, J. Chad Brenner, Steven B. Chinn, Ru-Rong Ji, Haitao Wen, Jacques E. Nör, Jie Wang, Gregory T. Wolf, Yuying Xie, Yu Leo Lei
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: OncoImmunology, Vol 10, Iss 1 (2021)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2162-402X
2162402X
DOI: 10.1080/2162402X.2021.1997385
Popis: Type-I interferon (IFN-I) signaling is critical to maintaining antigen-presenting cell function for anti-tumor immunity. However, recent studies have suggested that IFN-I signaling may also contribute to more aggressive phenotypes, raising the possibility that IFN-I downstream signaling in cancer and myeloid cells may exert dichotomous functions.We analyzed the clinicopathologic correlation of cancer-specific IFN-I activation in 195 head and neck squamous cell carcinoma patients. We also characterized the immune impact of IFN-I receptor (IFNAR1)-deficiency in syngeneic tumor models using biochemistry, flow cytometry, and single-cell RNA-Seq. We stained HNSCC tissue microarrays with a sensitive IFN-I downstream signaling activation marker, MX1, and quantitated cancer cell-specific MX1 staining. Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed that MX1-high tumors exhibited worse survival, a phenotype that depends on the number of CD8+ intratumoral T-cells. We found that cancer-specific IFNAR1 engagement promotes cancer stemness and higher expression levels of suppressive immune checkpoint receptor ligands in cancer-derived exosomes. Notably, mice bearing Ifnar1-deficient tumors exhibited lower tumor burden, increased T-cell infiltration, reduced exhausted CD4+PD1high T-cells, and increased effector population CD8+IFN-γ+ T-cells. Then, we performed single-cell RNA-sequencing and discovered that cancer-specific IFN-I signaling not only restricts effector cells expansion but also dampens their functional fitness.The beneficial role of IFN-I activation is largely dependent on the myeloid compartment. Cancer-specific IFN-I receptor engagement promotes cancer stemness and the release of cancer-derived exosomes with high expression levels of immune checkpoint receptor ligands. Cancer-specific IFN-I activation is associated with poor immunogenicity and worse clinical outcomes in HNSCC.
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