Department of Pathology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, 02215, USA.
Key Laboratory of Environment and Genes Related to Diseases, Ministry of Education, Xi'an, 710061, P.R. China.
Nat Commun. 2023 May 17;14(1):2806. doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-38443-3.
Activation of the cGAS/STING innate immunity pathway is essential and effective for anti-tumor immunotherapy. However, it remains largely elusive how tumor-intrinsic cGAS signaling is suppressed to facilitate tumorigenesis by escaping immune surveillance. Here, we report that the protein arginine methyltransferase, PRMT1, methylates cGAS at the conserved Arg133 residue, which prevents cGAS dimerization and suppresses the cGAS/STING signaling in cancer cells. Notably, genetic or pharmaceutical ablation of PRMT1 leads to activation of cGAS/STING-dependent DNA sensing signaling, and robustly elevates the transcription of type I and II interferon response genes. As such, PRMT1 inhibition elevates tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes in a cGAS-dependent manner, and promotes tumoral PD-L1 expression. Thus, combination therapy of PRMT1 inhibitor with anti-PD-1 antibody augments the anti-tumor therapeutic efficacy in vivo. Our study therefore defines the PRMT1/cGAS/PD-L1 regulatory axis as a critical factor in determining immune surveillance efficacy, which serves as a promising therapeutic target for boosting tumor immunity.
cGAS/STING 先天免疫途径的激活对于抗肿瘤免疫治疗至关重要且有效。然而,肿瘤内源性 cGAS 信号如何被抑制以逃避免疫监视从而促进肿瘤发生,在很大程度上仍不清楚。在这里,我们报告蛋白精氨酸甲基转移酶 PRMT1 可使 cGAS 在保守的 Arg133 残基上发生甲基化,从而阻止 cGAS 二聚化并抑制癌细胞中的 cGAS/STING 信号。值得注意的是,PRMT1 的遗传或药物消融导致 cGAS/STING 依赖性 DNA 感应信号的激活,并强烈上调 I 型和 II 型干扰素反应基因的转录。因此,PRMT1 抑制以 cGAS 依赖性方式增加肿瘤浸润淋巴细胞,并促进肿瘤 PD-L1 的表达。因此,PRMT1 抑制剂与抗 PD-1 抗体的联合治疗在体内增强了抗肿瘤治疗效果。因此,我们的研究将 PRMT1/cGAS/PD-L1 调节轴定义为决定免疫监视效果的关键因素,这为增强肿瘤免疫提供了一个有前途的治疗靶点。