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During metastasis, cancer cells invade, intravasate, enter the circulation, extravasate, and colonize target organs. Here, we examined the role of interleukin (IL)-22 in metastasis. Immune cell-derived IL-22 acts on epithelial tissues, promoting regeneration and healing upon tissue damage, but it is also associated with malignancy. Il22-deficient mice and mice treated with an IL-22 antibody were protected from colon-cancer-derived liver and lung metastasis formation, while overexpression of IL-22 promoted metastasis. Mechanistically, IL-22 acted on endothelial cells, promoting endothelial permeability and cancer cell transmigration via induction of endothelial aminopeptidase N. Multi-parameter flow cytometry and single-cell sequencing of immune cells isolated during cancer cell extravasation into the liver revealed iNKT17 cells as source of IL-22. iNKT-cell-deficient mice exhibited reduced metastases, which was reversed by injection of wild type, but not Il22-deficient, invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells. IL-22-producing iNKT cells promoting metastasis were tissue resident, as demonstrated by parabiosis. Thus, IL-22 may present a therapeutic target for prevention of metastasis., Competing Interests: Declaration of interests S.K. declares honoraria from GSK, BMS, Novartis, and TCR2, Inc.; license fees from TCR2, Inc. and Carina Biotech; and research support from TCR2, Inc., Plectonic GmbH, Tabby Therapeutics, and Arcus Biosciences., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Adoptive T cell therapy (ACT) is a therapeutic approach which employs genetically manipulated autologous T cells to target and eliminate a patient's malignancy. This novel therapeutic approach, when employing a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) targeting CD19-expressing B cells, has shown remarkable success in treating acute B-cell lymphocytic leukemia. However, blood born malignancies represent only a fraction of cancers which affect patients. Unfortunately, the utilization of ACT to target solid malignancies has only shown marginal success rates. There are many known obstacles which hinder CAR T cell therapy in patients suffering from solid cancer, one notable obstacle is the effective trafficking of CAR T cells to the tumor site. With the rapid advancement of novel approaches and targets which may enhance CAR T cell infiltration into solid tumors, a standardized approach to assess and measure CAR T cell infiltration becomes imperative in order to compare these different approaches across platforms. Here we describe a flow cytometry method which enables the rapid detection and quantification of CAR T cells which have reached and entered the tumor mass following intravenous injection. Competence with single cell preparation and flow cytometry is required for optimal results., Competing Interests: Competing interests S.K. and S.E. are inventors of several patents in the field of immuno-oncology. S.K. and S.E. received research support from TCR2 Inc. and Arcus Bioscience for work unrelated to this manuscript. S.K. has received honoraria from Novartis and TCR2 Inc. The authors declare that no competing interests exist., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)