Macrophage autophagy protects against hepatocellular carcinogenesis in mice

Autor: Anthony Deust, Marie-Noële Chobert, Vanessa Demontant, Guillaume Gricourt, Timothé Denaës, Allan Thiolat, Isaac Ruiz, Christophe Rodriguez, Jean-Michel Pawlotsky, Fatima Teixeira-Clerc
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Scientific Reports, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-16 (2021)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2045-2322
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-98203-5
Popis: Abstract Autophagy is a lysosomal degradation pathway of cellular components that regulates macrophage properties. Macrophages are critically involved in tumor growth, metastasis, angiogenesis and immune suppression. Here, we investigated whether macrophage autophagy may protect against hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Experiments were performed in mice with deletion of the autophagy gene Atg5 in the myeloid lineage (ATG5Mye−/− mice) and their wild-type (WT) littermates. As compared to WT, ATG5Mye−/− mice were more susceptible to diethylnitrosamine (DEN)-induced hepatocarcinogenesis, as shown by enhanced tumor number and volume. Moreover, DEN-treated ATG5Mye−/− mice exhibited compromised immune cell recruitment and activation in the liver, suggesting that macrophage autophagy invalidation altered the antitumoral immune response. RNA sequencing showed that autophagy-deficient macrophages sorted from DEN mice are characterized by an enhanced expression of immunosuppressive markers. In vitro studies demonstrated that hepatoma cells impair the autophagy flux of macrophages and stimulate their expression of programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1), a major regulator of the immune checkpoint. Moreover, pharmacological activation of autophagy reduces hepatoma cell-induced PD-L1 expression in cultured macrophages while inhibition of autophagy further increases PD-L1 expression suggesting that autophagy invalidation in macrophages induces an immunosuppressive phenotype. These results uncover macrophage autophagy as a novel protective pathway regulating liver carcinogenesis.
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