Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA 15219, USA.
Eur J Immunol. 2012 Jul;42(7):1778-84. doi: 10.1002/eji.201141978.
Tumor-specific immunosuppression is frequently observed in tumor-bearing hosts. Exosomes are nano-sized, endosomal-derived membrane vesicles secreted by most tumor and hematopoietic cells and have been shown to actively participate in immune regulation. We previously demonstrated that antigen-specific immunosuppressive exosomes could be isolated from the blood plasma of antigen-immunized mice. Here, we demonstrate that plasma-derived exosomes isolated from mice bearing OVA-expressing tumors were able to suppress OVA-specific immune responses in a mouse delayed-type hypersensitivity model. Enrichment of tumor-derived exosomes in the plasma of mice bearing subcutaneous melanoma was not detected using an exosome-tagging approach. Instead, depletion of MHC class II(+) vesicles from plasma-derived exosomes or using plasma-derived exosomes isolated from MHC class II-deficient mice resulted in significant abrogation of the suppressive effect. These results demonstrate that circulating host-derived, MHC class II(+) exosomes in tumor-bearing hosts are able to suppress the immune response specific to tumor antigens.
肿瘤宿主中常观察到肿瘤特异性免疫抑制。外泌体是由大多数肿瘤和造血细胞分泌的纳米大小的内体衍生的膜囊泡,已被证明能主动参与免疫调节。我们之前证明,抗原特异性免疫抑制性外泌体可从抗原免疫小鼠的血浆中分离。在这里,我们证明,从表达 OVA 的肿瘤荷瘤小鼠的血浆中分离的外泌体能够在小鼠迟发型超敏反应模型中抑制 OVA 特异性免疫反应。用外泌体标记方法未检测到荷皮下黑素瘤小鼠血浆中外泌体的富集。相反,从 MHC II 缺陷小鼠的血浆中分离的 MHC II(+)囊泡或从 MHC II 缺陷小鼠的血浆中分离的 MHC II(+)囊泡耗尽,导致抑制作用显著减弱。这些结果表明,肿瘤宿主中循环的宿主来源的 MHC II(+)外泌体能够抑制针对肿瘤抗原的免疫反应。