Center for Cutaneous Biology and Immunology, Department of Dermatology, Henry Ford Health, Detroit, MI, 48202, USA; Immunology Research Program, Henry Ford Cancer Institute, Henry Ford Health, Detroit, MI, 48202, USA.
Center for Cutaneous Biology and Immunology, Department of Dermatology, Henry Ford Health, Detroit, MI, 48202, USA; Immunology Research Program, Henry Ford Cancer Institute, Henry Ford Health, Detroit, MI, 48202, USA; Center for Bioinformatics, Department of Public Health Sciences, Henry Ford Health, Detroit, MI, 48202, USA.
Cancer Lett. 2023 May 1;561:216149. doi: 10.1016/j.canlet.2023.216149. Epub 2023 Mar 27.
Invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells are innate-like T cells that are abundant in liver sinusoids and play a critical role in tumor immunity. However, the role of iNKT cells in pancreatic cancer liver metastasis (PCLM) has not been fully explored. In this study, we employed a hemi-spleen pancreatic tumor cell injection mouse model of PCLM, a model that closely mimics clinical conditions in humans, to explore the role of iNKT cells in PCLM. Activation of iNKT cells with α-galactosylceramide (αGC) markedly increased immune cell infiltration and suppressed PCLM progression. Via single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) we profiled over 30,000 immune cells from normal liver and PCLM with or without αGC treatment and were able to characterize the global changes of the immune cells in the tumor microenvironment upon αGC treatment, identifying a total of 12 subpopulations. Upon treatment with αGC, scRNA-Seq and flow cytometry analyses revealed increased cytotoxic activity of iNKT/NK cells and skewing CD4 T cells towards a cytotoxic Th1 profile and CD8 T cells towards a cytotoxic profile, characterized by higher proliferation and reduced exhaustion marker PD1 expression. Moreover, αGC treatment excluded tumor associated macrophages. Lastly, imaging mass cytometry analysis uncovered the reduced epithelial to mesenchymal transition related markers and increased active CD4 and CD8 T cells in PCLM with αGC treatment. Overall, our findings uncover the protective function of activated iNKT cells in pancreatic cancer liver metastasis through increased NK and T cell immunity and decreased tumor associated macrophages.
天然不变型自然杀伤 T(iNKT)细胞是固有样 T 细胞,在肝窦中丰富存在,在肿瘤免疫中发挥关键作用。然而,iNKT 细胞在胰腺癌肝转移(PCLM)中的作用尚未得到充分探索。在这项研究中,我们采用了一种半脾胰腺肿瘤细胞注射的 PCLM 小鼠模型,该模型非常类似于人类的临床情况,以探索 iNKT 细胞在 PCLM 中的作用。用 α-半乳糖神经酰胺(αGC)激活 iNKT 细胞显著增加免疫细胞浸润,并抑制 PCLM 进展。通过单细胞 RNA 测序(scRNA-seq),我们对正常肝和 PCLM 以及用或不用 αGC 治疗的肿瘤中的超过 30000 个免疫细胞进行了分析,能够对 αGC 治疗后肿瘤微环境中免疫细胞的整体变化进行特征描述,共鉴定出 12 个亚群。用 αGC 处理后,scRNA-Seq 和流式细胞术分析显示 iNKT/NK 细胞的细胞毒性活性增加,CD4 T 细胞向细胞毒性 Th1 表型和 CD8 T 细胞向细胞毒性表型倾斜,特征为更高的增殖和减少衰竭标志物 PD1 的表达。此外,αGC 处理排除了肿瘤相关巨噬细胞。最后,成像质谱细胞术分析揭示了 PCLM 中上皮间质转化相关标志物减少,αGC 治疗后活性 CD4 和 CD8 T 细胞增加。总的来说,我们的研究结果揭示了激活的 iNKT 细胞通过增加 NK 和 T 细胞免疫以及减少肿瘤相关巨噬细胞在胰腺癌肝转移中的保护作用。
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