Depletion of Conventional Type-1 Dendritic Cells in Established Tumors Suppresses Immunotherapy Efficacy.

The ability of conventional type-1 dendritic cells (cDC1) to cross-present tumor antigens to CD8+ T cells is critical for the induction of antitumor CTLs. Mice that are constitutively deficient in cDC1 cells have been reported to fail to respond to immunotherapy strategies based on checkpoint inhibitors. However, further work is needed to clarify the precise time during immunotherapy treatment that cDC1 cells are required for the beneficial effect of treatment. Here, we used a refined XCR1-DTR-Venus transgenic mouse model to acutely deplete cDC1 cells and trace their behavior using intravital microscopy. Diphtheria toxin-mediated cDC1 depletion prior to immunotherapy treatment with anti-PD-1 and/or anti-CD137 immunostimulatory mAbs completely ablated antitumor efficacy. The efficacy of adoptive T-cell therapy was also hampered by prior cDC1 depletion. After the onset of immunotherapy treatment, depletion of cDC1s only moderately reduced the therapeutic efficacy of anti-PD-1 and anti-CD137 mAbs. Intravital microscopy of liver-engrafted tumors revealed changes in the intratumoral behavior of cDC1 cells in mice receiving immunotherapy, and treatment with diphtheria toxin to deplete cDC1s impaired tumor T-cell infiltration and function. These results reveal that the functional integrity of the cDC1 compartment is required at the onset of various immunotherapies to successfully treat established tumors. SIGNIFICANCE: These findings reveal the intratumoral behavior of cDC1 dendritic cells in transgenic mouse models and demonstrate that the efficacy of immunotherapy regimens is precluded by elimination of these cells.

A Proteomic Atlas of Lineage and Cancer-Polarized Expression Modules in Myeloid Cells Modeling Immunosuppressive Tumor-Infiltrating Subsets.

Monocytic and granulocytic myeloid-derived suppressor cells together with tumor-infiltrating macrophages constitute the main tumor-infiltrating immunosuppressive myeloid populations. Due to the phenotypic resemblance to conventional myeloid cells, their identification and purification from within the tumors is technically difficult and makes their study a challenge. We differentiated myeloid cells modeling the three main tumor-infiltrating types together with uncommitted macrophages, using ex vivo differentiation methods resembling the tumor microenvironment. The phenotype and proteome of these cells was compared to identify linage-dependent relationships and cancer-specific interactome expression modules. The relationships between monocytic MDSCs and TAMs, monocytic MDSCs and granulocytic MDSCs, and hierarchical relationships of expression networks and transcription factors due to lineage and cancer polarization were mapped. Highly purified immunosuppressive myeloid cell populations that model tumor-infiltrating counterparts were systematically analyzed by quantitative proteomics. Full functional interactome maps have been generated to characterize at high resolution the relationships between the three main myeloid tumor-infiltrating cell types. Our data highlights the biological processes related to each cell type, and uncover novel shared and differential molecular targets. Moreover, the high numbers and fidelity of ex vivo-generated subsets to their natural tumor-shaped counterparts enable their use for validation of new treatments in high-throughput experiments.

Essential Oils as Antimicrobials in Crop Protection.

At present, organic crops have reached an important boom in a society increasingly interested in the conservation of the environment and sustainability. It is evident that a part of the population in the Western world focuses their concern on how to obtain our food and on doing it in a way that is as respectful as possible with the environment. In this review, we present a compilation of the work carried out with the use of essential oils as an alternative in the fight against different bacteria and fungi that attack crops and related products. Given the collected works, the efficacy of essential oils for their use as pesticides for agricultural use is evident.

Profound Reprogramming towards Stemness in Pancreatic Cancer Cells as Adaptation to AKT Inhibition.

Cancer cells acquire resistance to cytotoxic therapies targeting major survival pathways by adapting their metabolism. The AKT pathway is a major regulator of human pancreatic adenocarcinoma progression and a key pharmacological target. The mechanisms of adaptation to long-term silencing of AKT isoforms of human and mouse pancreatic adenocarcinoma cancer cells were studied. Following silencing, cancer cells remained quiescent for long periods of time, after which they recovered proliferative capacities. Adaptation caused profound proteomic changes largely affecting mitochondrial biogenesis, energy metabolism and acquisition of a number of distinct cancer stem cell (CSC) characteristics depending on the AKT isoform that was silenced. The adaptation to AKT1 silencing drove most de-differentiation and acquisition of stemness through C-MYC down-modulation and NANOG upregulation, which were required for survival of adapted CSCs. The changes associated to adaptation sensitized cancer cells to inhibitors targeting regulators of oxidative respiration and mitochondrial biogenesis. In vivo pharmacological co-inhibition of AKT and mitochondrial metabolism effectively controlled pancreatic adenocarcinoma growth in pre-clinical models.

CXCR1 and CXCR2 Chemokine Receptor Agonists Produced by Tumors Induce Neutrophil Extracellular Traps that Interfere with Immune Cytotoxicity.

Neutrophils are expanded and abundant in cancer-bearing hosts. Under the influence of CXCR1 and CXCR2 chemokine receptor agonists and other chemotactic factors produced by tumors, neutrophils, and granulocytic myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) from cancer patients extrude their neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs). In our hands, CXCR1 and CXCR2 agonists proved to be the major mediators of cancer-promoted NETosis. NETs wrap and coat tumor cells and shield them from cytotoxicity, as mediated by CD8+ T cells and natural killer (NK) cells, by obstructing contact between immune cells and the surrounding target cells. Tumor cells protected from cytotoxicity by NETs underlie successful cancer metastases in mice and the immunotherapeutic synergy of protein arginine deiminase 4 (PAD4) inhibitors, which curtail NETosis with immune checkpoint inhibitors. Intravital microscopy provides evidence of neutrophil NETs interfering cytolytic cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) and NK cell contacts with tumor cells.

Early Detection of Hyperprogressive Disease in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer by Monitoring of Systemic T Cell Dynamics.

Hyperprogressive disease (HPD) is an adverse outcome of immunotherapy consisting of an acceleration of tumor growth associated with prompt clinical deterioration. The definitions based on radiological evaluation present important technical limitations. No biomarkers have been identified yet. In this study, 70 metastatic NSCLC patients treated with anti-PD-1/PD-L1 immunotherapy after progression to platinum-based therapy were prospectively studied. Samples from peripheral blood were obtained before the first (baseline) and second cycles of treatment. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were isolated and differentiation stages of CD4 lymphocytes quantified by flow cytometry and correlated with HPD as identified with radiological criteria. A strong expansion of highly differentiated CD28- CD4 T lymphocytes (CD4 THD) between the first and second cycle of therapy was observed in HPD patients. After normalizing, the proportion of posttreatment/pretreatment CD4 THD was significantly higher in HPD when compared with the rest of patients (median 1.525 vs. 0.990; p = 0.0007), and also when stratifying by HPD, non-HPD progressors, and responders (1.525, 1.000 and 0.9700 respectively; p = 0.0025). A cut-off value of 1.3 identified HPD with 82% specificity and 70% sensitivity. An increase of CD28- CD4 T lymphocytes ≥ 1.3 (CD4 THD burst) was significantly associated with HPD (p = 0.008). The tumor growth ratio (TGR) was significantly higher in patients with expansion of CD4 THD burst compared to the rest of patients (median 2.67 vs. 0.86, p = 0.0049), and also when considering only progressors (median 2.67 vs. 1.03, p = 0.0126). A strong expansion of CD28- CD4 lymphocytes in peripheral blood within the first cycle of therapy is an early differential feature of HPD in NSCLC treated with immune-checkpoint inhibitors. The monitoring of T cell dynamics allows the early detection of this adverse outcome in clinical practice and complements radiological evaluation.

Repurposing infectious disease vaccines for intratumoral immunotherapy.

Intratumoral delivery of viruses and virus-associated molecular patterns can achieve antitumor effects that are largely mediated by the elicitation or potentiation of immune responses against the malignancy. Attenuated vaccines are approved and marketed as good manufactiring practice (GMP)-manufactured agents whose administration might be able to induce such effects. Recent reports in mouse transplantable tumor models indicate that the rotavirus, influenza and yellow fever vaccines can be especially suitable to elicit powerful antitumor immunity against cancer following intratumoral administration. These results highlight that intratumoral anti-infectious vaccines can turn cold tumors into hot, and underscore the key role played by virus-induced type I interferon pathways to overcome resistance to immune checkpoint-targeted antibodies.

Functional systemic CD4 immunity is required for clinical responses to PD-L1/PD-1 blockade therapy.

The majority of lung cancer patients progressing from conventional therapies are refractory to PD-L1/PD-1 blockade monotherapy. Here, we show that baseline systemic CD4 immunity is a differential factor for clinical responses. Patients with functional systemic CD4 T cells included all objective responders and could be identified before the start of therapy by having a high proportion of memory CD4 T cells. In these patients, CD4 T cells possessed significant proliferative capacities, low co-expression of PD-1/LAG-3 and were responsive to PD-1 blockade ex vivo and in vivo. In contrast, patients with dysfunctional systemic CD4 immunity did not respond even though they had lung cancer-specific T cells. Although proficient in cytokine production, CD4 T cells in these patients proliferated very poorly, strongly co-upregulated PD-1/LAG-3, and were largely refractory to PD-1 monoblockade. CD8 immunity only recovered in patients with functional CD4 immunity. T-cell proliferative dysfunctionality could be reverted by PD-1/LAG-3 co-blockade. Patients with functional CD4 immunity and PD-L1 tumor positivity exhibited response rates of 70%, highlighting the contribution of CD4 immunity for efficacious PD-L1/PD-1 blockade therapy.

Effective cancer immunotherapy in mice by polyIC-imiquimod complexes and engineered magnetic nanoparticles.

Encouraging results are emerging from systems that exploit Toll like receptor (TLR) signaling, nanotechnology, checkpoint inhibition and molecular imaging for cancer immunotherapy. A major remaining challenge is developing effective, durable and tumour-specific immune responses without systemic toxicity. Here, we report a simple and versatile system based on synergistic activation of immune responses and direct cancer cell killing by combined TLR ligation using polyIC as TLR3 and imiquimod (R837) as TLR7 agonist, in combination with the model antigen ovalbumin (OVA) and phospholipid micelles loaded with zinc-doped iron oxide magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs). The combination of TLR agonists triggered a strong innate immune response in the lymph nodes (LNs) without systemic release of pro-inflammatory cytokines. The vaccines showed excellent efficacy against aggressive B16-F10 melanoma cells expressing OVA, which was improved with immune checkpoint abrogation of the immunosuppressive programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) at the level of the cancer cells. By magnetic resonance (MR) and nuclear imaging we could track the vaccine migration from the site of injection to LNs and tumour. Overall, we show this synergistic TLR agonists and their combination with MNPs and immune checkpoint blockade to have considerable potential for preclinical and clinical development of vaccines for cancer immunotherapy.

Characterization of Macrophage Endogenous S-Nitrosoproteome Using a Cysteine-Specific Phosphonate Adaptable Tag in Combination with TiO2 Chromatography.

Protein S-nitrosylation is a cysteine post-translational modification mediated by nitric oxide. An increasing number of studies highlight S-nitrosylation as an important regulator of signaling involved in numerous cellular processes. Despite the significant progress in the development of redox proteomic methods, identification and quantification of endogeneous S-nitrosylation using high-throughput mass-spectrometry-based methods is a technical challenge because this modification is highly labile. To overcome this drawback, most methods induce S-nitrosylation chemically in proteins using nitrosylating compounds before analysis, with the risk of introducing nonphysiological S-nitrosylation. Here we present a novel method to efficiently identify endogenous S-nitrosopeptides in the macrophage total proteome. Our approach is based on the labeling of S-nitrosopeptides reduced by ascorbate with a cysteine specific phosphonate adaptable tag (CysPAT), followed by titanium dioxide (TiO2) chromatography enrichment prior to nLC-MS/MS analysis. To test our procedure, we performed a large-scale analysis of this low-abundant modification in a murine macrophage cell line. We identified 569 endogeneous S-nitrosylated proteins compared with 795 following exogenous chemically induced S-nitrosylation. Importantly, we discovered 579 novel S-nitrosylation sites. The large number of identified endogenous S-nitrosylated peptides allowed the definition of two S-nitrosylation consensus sites, highlighting protein translation and redox processes as key S-nitrosylation targets in macrophages.

Myeloid-Derived Suppressor Cells in the Tumor Microenvironment: Current Knowledge and Future Perspectives.

The current knowledge on tumor-infiltrating myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) is based mainly on the extensive work performed in murine models. Data obtained for human counterparts are generated on the basis of tumor analysis from patient samples. Both sources of information led to determination of the main suppressive mechanisms used by these cell subsets in tumor-bearing hosts. As a result of the identification of protein targets responsible for MDSCs suppressive activity, different therapeutics agents have been used to eliminate/reduce their adverse effect. In the present work, we review the current knowledge on suppressive mechanisms of MDSCs and therapeutic treatments that interfere with their differentiation, expansion or activity. Based on the accumulation of new evidences supporting their importance for tumor progression and metastasis, the interest in these cell types is increasing. We revise the methods of MDSC generation/differentiation ex vivo that may help in overcoming problems associated with limited numbers of cells available from animals and patients for their study.

Drafting the proteome landscape of myeloid-derived suppressor cells.

Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) are a heterogeneous population of cells that are defined by their myeloid origin, immature state, and ability to potently suppress T-cell responses. They regulate immune responses and the population significantly increases in the tumor microenvironment of patients with glioma and other malignant tumors. For their study, MDSCs are usually isolated from the spleen or directly of tumors from a large number of tumor-bearing mice although promising ex vivo differentiated MDSC production systems have been recently developed. During the last years, proteomics has emerged as a powerful approach to analyze MDSCs proteomes using shotgun-based mass spectrometry (MS), providing functional information about cellular homeostasis and metabolic state at a global level. Here, we will revise recent proteome profiling studies performed in MDSCs from different origins. Moreover, we will perform an integrative functional analysis of the protein compilation derived from these large-scale proteomic studies in order to obtain a comprehensive view of MDSCs biology. Finally, we will also discuss the potential application of high-throughput proteomic approaches to study global proteome dynamics and post-translational modifications (PTMs) during the differentiation process of MDSCs that will greatly boost the identification of novel MDSC-specific therapeutic targets to apply in cancer immunotherapy.

A highly efficient tumor-infiltrating MDSC differentiation system for discovery of anti-neoplastic targets, which circumvents the need for tumor establishment in mice.

Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) exhibit potent immunosuppressive activities in cancer. MDSCs infiltrate tumors and strongly inhibit cancer-specific cytotoxic T cells. Their mechanism of differentiation and identification of MDSC-specific therapeutic targets are major areas of interest. We have devised a highly efficient and rapid method to produce very large numbers of melanoma-infiltrating MDSCs ex vivo without inducing tumors in mice. These MDSCs were used to study their differentiation, immunosuppressive activities and were compared to non-neoplastic counterparts and conventional dendritic cells using unbiased systems biology approaches. Differentially activated/deactivated pathways caused by cell type differences and by the melanoma tumor environment were identified. MDSCs increased the expression of trafficking receptors to sites of inflammation, endocytosis, changed lipid metabolism, and up-regulated detoxification pathways such as the expression of P450 reductase. These studies uncovered more than 60 potential novel therapeutic targets. As a proof of principle, we demonstrate that P450 reductase is the target of pro-drugs such as Paclitaxel, which depletes MDSCs following chemotherapy in animal models of melanoma and in human patients. Conversely, P450 reductase protects MDSCs against the cytotoxic actions of other chemotherapy drugs such as Irinotecan, which is ineffective for the treatment of melanoma.

Atenção à saúde ocular de crinaças com alterações neurológicas: relevância da avaliação oftalmológica / Ocular health assistance for children with neurological impairment: importance of ophthalmic assessment

O objetivo do estudo foi pesquisar se crianças com diagnóstico de paralisia cerebral são submetidas a avaliação oftalmológica em período oportuno para o desenvolvimento da visão. Trata-se de estudo retrospectivo envolvendo prontuários de 30 crianças com idade de ate dez anos. Verificou-se que 53,3% dos casos realizaram avaliação oftalmológica, mas apenas a metade dessas avaliações foi realizada dentro do período critico para o desenvolvimento da visão. Dos casos de paralisia cerebral espástica, 45,8% não foram submetidos a avaliação oftalmológica, embora 92,3% deles tenham apresentado alteração visual. Concluiu-se que crianças com paralisia cerebral ainda são encaminhadas tardiamente para o oftalmologista, diminuindo as possibilidades de desenvolvimento da visão em período oportuno.

To analyze if children with cerebral palsy are submitted to ophthalmologic assessment in opportune period of the vision development was the purpose of this investigation. It is a retrospective study involving the registers of 30 children up to 10 years old. Ophthalmologic assessment was observed in 53.3% of the cases, but only half of the evaluations was realized at the critical period of the vision development. In addition, it was verified that 45.8% of the spastic cerebral palsy cases were not submitted to this assessment, although 92.3% of the assessed children presented visual disorders. It was concluded that children with cerebral palsy are still recommended to an ophthalmologist very lately, reducing the possibilities of better visual development in the opportune time.