Vaccination generates functional progenitor tumor-specific CD8 T cells and long-term tumor control.

Background: Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapies are an important treatment for patients with advanced cancers; however only a subset of patients with certain types of cancer achieves durable remissions. Cancer vaccines are an attractive strategy to boost patient immune responses, but less is known about whether and how immunization can induce long-term tumor immune reprogramming and arrest cancer progression. We developed a clinically-relevant genetic cancer mouse model in which hepatocytes sporadically undergo oncogenic transformation. We compared how tumor-specific CD8 T cells (TST) differentiate in mice with early sporadic lesions as compared to late lesions and tested how immunotherapeutic strategies, including vaccination and ICB, reprogram TST and impact liver cancer progression. Methods: Mice with a germline floxed allele of the SV40 large T antigen (TAG) undergo spontaneous recombination and activation of the TAG oncogene, leading to rare early pre-cancerous lesions that inevitably progress to established liver cancer. We assessed the immunophenotype and function of TAG-specific CD8 T cells in mice with early and late liver lesions. We vaccinated mice, either alone or in combination with ICB, to test whether these immunotherapeutic interventions could stop liver cancer progression. Results: In mice with early lesions, a subset of TST were PD1 + TCF1 + TOX - and could produce IFNγ, while TST present in mice with late liver cancers were PD1 + TCF1 lo/- TOX + and unable to make effector cytokines. Strikingly, vaccination with attenuated TAG epitope-expressing Listeria monocytogenes (LM TAG ) blocked liver cancer development and led to a population of TST that were TCF1 + TOX - TST and polyfunctional cytokine producers. In contrast, ICB administration did not slow cancer progression or improve LM TAG vaccine efficacy. Conclusion: Vaccination, but not ICB, generated a population of progenitor TST and halted cancer progression in a clinically relevant model of sporadic liver cancer. In patients with early cancers or at high-risk of cancer recurrence, immunization may be the most effective strategy. What is already known on this topic: Immunotherapy, including immune checkpoint blockade and cancer vaccines, fails to induce long-term remissions in most patients with cancer. What this study adds: Hosts with early lesions but not hosts with advanced cancer retain a progenitor TCF1+ TST population. This population can be reprogrammed and therapeutically exploited by vaccination, but not ICB, to block tumor progression. How this study might affect research practice or policy: For people at high-risk of cancer progression, vaccination administered when a responsive progenitor TST population is present may be the optimal immunotherapy to induce long-lasting progression-free survival.

Tumor-Reactive CD8+ T Cells Enter a TCF1+PD-1- Dysfunctional State.

T cells recognize several types of antigens in tumors, including aberrantly expressed, nonmutated proteins, which are therefore shared with normal tissue and referred to as self/shared-antigens (SSA), and mutated proteins or oncogenic viral proteins, which are referred to as tumor-specific antigens (TSA). Immunotherapies such as immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) can activate T-cell responses against TSA, leading to tumor control, and also against SSA, causing immune-related adverse events (irAE). To improve anti-TSA immunity while limiting anti-SSA autoreactivity, we need to understand how tumor-specific CD8+ T cells (TST) and SSA-specific CD8+ T (SST) cells differentiate in response to cognate antigens during tumorigenesis. Therefore, we developed a genetic cancer mouse model in which we can track TST and SST differentiation longitudinally as liver cancers develop. We found that both TST and SST lost effector function over time, but while TST persisted long term and had a dysfunctional/exhausted phenotype (including expression of PD1, CD39, and TOX), SST exited cell cycle prematurely and disappeared from liver lesions. However, SST persisted in spleens in a dysfunctional TCF1+PD-1- state: unable to produce effector cytokines or proliferate in response to ICB targeting PD-1 or PD-L1. Thus, our studies identify a dysfunctional T-cell state occupied by T cells reactive to SSA: a TCF1+PD-1- state lacking in effector function, demonstrating that the type/specificity of tumor antigen may determine tumor-reactive T-cell differentiation.

Hallmarks of CD8+ T cell dysfunction are established within hours of tumor antigen encounter before cell division.

Tumor-specific CD8+ T cells (TST) in patients with cancer are dysfunctional and unable to halt cancer progression. TST dysfunction, also known as exhaustion, is thought to be driven by chronic T cell antigen receptor (TCR) stimulation over days to weeks. However, we know little about the interplay between CD8+ T cell function, cell division and epigenetic remodeling within hours of activation. Here, we assessed early CD8+ T cell differentiation, cell division, chromatin accessibility and transcription in tumor-bearing mice and acutely infected mice. Surprisingly, despite robust activation and proliferation, TST had near complete effector function impairment even before undergoing cell division and had acquired hallmark chromatin accessibility features previously associated with later dysfunction/exhaustion. Moreover, continued tumor/antigen exposure drove progressive epigenetic remodeling, 'imprinting' the dysfunctional state. Our study reveals the rapid divergence of T cell fate choice before cell division in the context of tumors versus infection.