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Antitumor immunity driven by intratumoral dendritic cells contributes to the efficacy of anthracycline-based chemotherapy in cancer.We identified a loss-of-function allele of the gene coding for formyl peptide receptor 1 (FPR1) that was associated with poor metastasis-free and overall survival in breast and colorectal cancer patients receiving adjuvant chemotherapy. The therapeutic effects of anthracyclines were abrogated in tumor-bearing Fpr1-/- mice due to impaired antitumor immunity. Fpr1-deficient dendritic cells failed to approach dying cancer cells and, as a result, could not elicit antitumor T cell immunity. Experiments performed in a microfluidic device confirmed that FPR1 and its ligand, annexin-1, promoted stable interactions between dying cancer cells and human or murine leukocytes. Altogether, these results highlight the importance of FPR1 in chemotherapy-induced anticancer immune responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The antineoplastic effects of anthracyclines have been shown to rely, at least in part, on a local immune response that involves dendritic cells (DCs) and several distinct subsets of T lymphocytes. Here, we show that the administration of anthracyclines to mice bearing established neoplasms stimulates the intratumoral secretion of tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα). However, blocking the TNFα/TNF receptor (TNFR) system by three different strategies—namely, (1) neutralizing antibodies, (2) etanercept, a recombinant protein in which TNFR is fused to the constant domain of an IgG1 molecule, and (3) gene knockout—failed to negatively affect the therapeutic efficacy of anthracyclines in three distinct tumor models. In particular, TNFα-blocking strategies did not influence the antineoplastic effects of doxorubicin (a prototypic anthracycline) against MCA 205 fibrosarcomas growing in C57BL/6 mice, F244 sarcomas developing in 129/Sv hosts and H2N100 mammary carcinomas arising in BALB/c mice. These findings imply that, in contrast to other cytokines (such as interleukin-1β, interleukin-17 and interferon γ), TNFα is not required for anthracyclines to elicit therapeutic anticancer immune responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]