1. Ginseng-derived nanoparticles reprogram macrophages to regulate arginase-1 release for ameliorating T cell exhaustion in tumor microenvironment.
- Author
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Lv, Yan, Li, Mengyuan, Weng, Ling, Huang, Haoying, Mao, Yujie, Yang, Danchen Aaron, Wei, Qingyun, Zhao, Mengmeng, Wei, Qin, Rui, Ke, Han, Xuan, Fan, Weiwei, Cai, Xueting, Cao, Peng, and Cao, Meng
- Subjects
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T-cell exhaustion , *TUMOR microenvironment , *MACROPHAGES , *T cells , *IMMUNE checkpoint proteins - Abstract
Background: Lines of evidence indicated that, immune checkpoints (ICs) inhibitors enhanced T cell immune response to exert anti-tumor effects. However, T cell exhaustion has been so far a major obstacle to antitumor immunotherapy in colorectal cancer patients. Our previous studies showed that ginseng-derived nanoparticles (GDNPs) inhibited the growth of various tumors by reprograming tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) and downregulated the ICs expression on T cells in tumor microenvironment (TME), but the underlying effector mechanisms remained unclear. Methods: The correlation between arginase-1 (ARG1) and T cells was computed based on the colorectal cancer patients in TCGA database. In vitro, we observed that GDNPs reprogrammed TAMs inhibited ARG1 release and ultimately ameliorated T cell exhaustion according to several techniques including WB, PCR, ELISA and flow cytometry. We also used an in vivo MC38 tumor-bearing model and administered GDNPs to assess their anti-tumor effects through multiple indices. The mechanism that GDNPs improved T cell exhaustion was further clarified using the bioinformatics tools and flow cytometry. Results: GDNPs reprogramed TAMs via reducing ARG1 production. Moreover, normalized arginine metabolism ameliorated T cell exhaustion through mTOR-T-bet axis, resulting in reduced ICs expression and enhanced CD8+ T cells expansion. Conclusions: By regulating the mTOR-T-bet axis, GDNPs reprogramed macrophages to regulate ARG1 release, which further ameliorated T cell exhaustion in TME. These findings provided new insights into comprehending the mechanisms underlying the mitigation of T cell exhaustion, which may facilitate the development of innovative therapeutic strategies in the field of cancer treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
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