RESUMO
Exciting progress in the field of cancer immunotherapy has renewed the urgency of the need for basic studies of immunoregulation in both adaptive cell lineages and innate cell lineages. Here we found a central role for major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I in controlling the phagocytic function of macrophages. Our results demonstrated that expression of the common MHC class I component ß2-microglobulin (ß2M) by cancer cells directly protected them from phagocytosis. We further showed that this protection was mediated by the inhibitory receptor LILRB1, whose expression was upregulated on the surface of macrophages, including tumor-associated macrophages. Disruption of either MHC class I or LILRB1 potentiated phagocytosis of tumor cells both in vitro and in vivo, which defines the MHC class I-LILRB1 signaling axis as an important regulator of the effector function of innate immune cells, a potential biomarker for therapeutic response to agents directed against the signal-regulatory protein CD47 and a potential target of anti-cancer immunotherapy.
Assuntos
Antígenos de Histocompatibilidade Classe I/imunologia , Receptor B1 de Leucócitos Semelhante a Imunoglobulina/imunologia , Macrófagos/imunologia , Neoplasias/imunologia , Fagocitose/imunologia , Animais , Linhagem Celular Tumoral , Antígenos de Histocompatibilidade Classe I/metabolismo , Humanos , Imunoterapia/métodos , Receptor B1 de Leucócitos Semelhante a Imunoglobulina/metabolismo , Macrófagos/metabolismo , Camundongos Endogâmicos BALB C , Camundongos Endogâmicos C57BL , Camundongos Endogâmicos NOD , Camundongos Knockout , Camundongos SCID , Neoplasias/metabolismo , Neoplasias/terapia , Neoplasias Experimentais/imunologia , Neoplasias Experimentais/metabolismo , Neoplasias Experimentais/terapiaRESUMO
CD47 is a cell surface molecule that inhibits phagocytosis of cells that express it by binding to its receptor, SIRPα, on macrophages and other immune cells. CD47 is expressed at different levels by neoplastic and normal cells. Here, to reveal mechanisms by which different neoplastic cells generate this dominant 'don't eat me' signal, we analyse the CD47 regulatory genomic landscape. We identify two distinct super-enhancers (SEs) associated with CD47 in certain cancer cell types. We show that a set of active constituent enhancers, located within the two CD47 SEs, regulate CD47 expression in different cancer cell types and that disruption of CD47 SEs reduces CD47 gene expression. Finally we report that the TNF-NFKB1 signalling pathway directly regulates CD47 by interacting with a constituent enhancer located within a CD47-associated SE specific to breast cancer. These results suggest that cancers can evolve SE to drive CD47 overexpression to escape immune surveillance.