期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2022
卷号：119
期号：4
DOI：10.1073/pnas.2119463119
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：Significance
Carcinomas resist immunotherapy because T cells are absent from nests of cancer cells. The chemokine/chemokine receptor system, which regulates the migration of immune cells, is a candidate for this impaired intratumoral accumulation of T cells. Cancer cells in human pancreatic, colorectal, and breast cancers are coated with the chemokine CXCL12 in the form of covalent heterodimers with keratin-19. This CXCL12 coating was investigated using a mouse model of pancreatic cancer that replicates the immunological characteristics of human cancer. Mouse pancreatic cancer cells without the CXCL12 coating formed tumors that did not exclude T cells and responded to anti–PD-1 antibody treatment. Thus, the ability of cancer cells to coat themselves with CXCL12 may contribute to resistance to immunotherapy.
Cancer immunotherapy frequently fails because most carcinomas have few T cells, suggesting that cancers can suppress T cell infiltration. Here, we show that cancer cells of human pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA), colorectal cancer, and breast cancer are coated with transglutaminase-2 (TGM2)–dependent covalent CXCL12–keratin-19 (KRT19) heterodimers that are organized as filamentous networks. Since a dimeric form of CXCL12 suppresses the motility of human T cells, we determined whether this polymeric CXCL12–KRT19 coating mediated T cell exclusion. Mouse tumors containing control PDA cells exhibited the CXCL12–KRT19 coating, excluded T cells, and did not respond to treatment with anti–PD-1 antibody. Tumors containing PDA cells not expressing either KRT19 or TGM2 lacked the CXCL12–KRT19 coating, were infiltrated with activated CD8
+ T cells, and growth was suppressed with anti–PD-1 antibody treatment. Thus, carcinomas assemble a CXCL12–KRT19 coating to evade cancer immune attack.
