Back to Search Start Over

MHC class II molecules on pancreatic cancer cells indicate a potential for neo-antigen-based immunotherapy

Authors :
Renato B. Baleeiro
Christian J. Bouwens
Peng Liu
Carmela Di Gioia
Louisa S. Chard Dunmall
Ai Nagano
Rathistevy Gangeswaran
Claude Chelala
Hemant M. Kocher
Nicholas R. Lemoine
Yaohe Wang
Source :
Oncoimmunology. 11(1)
Publication Year :
2022

Abstract

MHC class II expression is a hallmark of professional antigen-presenting cells and key to the induction of CD4+ T helper cells. We found that these molecules are ectopically expressed on tumor cells in a large proportion of patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) and on several PDAC cell lines. In contrast to the previous reports that tumoral expression of MHC-II in melanoma enabled tumor cells to evade immunosurveillance, the expression of MHC-II on PDAC cells neither protected cancer cells from Fas-mediated cell death nor caused T-cell suppression by engagement with its ligand LAG-3 on activated T-cells. In fact and surprisingly, the MHC-II/LAG-3 pathway contributed to CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell cytotoxicity toward MHC-II-positive PDAC cells. By combining bioinformatic tools and cell-based assays, we identified a number of immunogenic neo-antigens that can be presented by the patients' HLA class II alleles. Furthermore, CD4+ T-cells stimulated with neo-antigens were capable of recognizing and killing a human PDAC cell line expressing the mutated genes. To expand this approach to a larger number of PDAC patients, we show that co-treatment with IFN-γ and/or MEK/HDAC inhibitors induced tumoral MHC-II expression on MHC-II-negative tumors that are IFN-γ-resistant. Taken together, our data point to the possibility of harnessing MHC-II expression on PDAC cells for neo-antigen-based immunotherapy.

Details

ISSN :
2162402X
Volume :
11
Issue :
1
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Oncoimmunology
Accession number :
edsair.doi.dedup.....69a3eef5df08083cc8add1172e514f31