scholarly journals Profiling chemoresistance in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and the stromal microenvironment stellate cancer-associated fibroblast

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 599
Author(s):  
Natalie Johnson ◽  
Duncan Spalding ◽  
Chris Lord
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. I. Alexander ◽  
D. B. Vendramini-Costa ◽  
R. Francescone ◽  
T. Luong ◽  
J. Franco-Barraza ◽  
...  

AbstractPancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has a five-year survival under 10%. Treatment is compromised due to a fibrotic-like stromal remodeling process, known as desmoplasia, which limits therapeutic perfusion, supports tumor progression, and establishes an immunosuppressive microenvironment. These processes are driven by cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), functionally activated through transforming growth factor beta1 (TGFβ1). CAFs produce a topographically aligned extracellular matrix (ECM) that correlates with reduced overall survival. Paradoxically, ablation of CAF populations results in a more aggressive disease, suggesting CAFs can also restrain PDAC progression. Thus, unraveling the mechanism(s) underlying CAF functions could lead to therapies that reinstate the tumor-suppressive features of the pancreatic stroma. CAF activation involves the f-actin organizing protein palladin. CAFs express two palladin isoforms (iso3 and iso4) which are up-regulated in response to TGFβ1. However, the roles of iso3 and iso4 in CAF functions remain elusive. Using a CAF-derived ECM model, we uncovered that iso3/iso4 are required to sustain TGFβ1-dependent CAF activation, secrete immunosuppressive cytokines, and produce a pro-tumoral ECM. Findings demonstrate a novel role for CAF palladin and suggest that iso3/iso4 regulate both redundant and specific tumor-supportive desmoplastic functions. This study highlights the therapeutic potential of targeting CAFs to restore fibroblastic anti-tumor activity in the pancreatic microenvironment.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhikai Wang ◽  
Ran Yan ◽  
Jiayun Li ◽  
Ya Gao ◽  
Philip Moresco ◽  
...  

AbstractHow pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) cells stimulate CXCR4 to exclude T cells and resist T cell checkpoint inhibitors is not known. Here, we find that CXCL12, the ligand for CXCR4 that is produced by the cancer-associated fibroblast, “coats” human PDA and colorectal cancer cells as covalent heterodimers with keratin 19 (KRT19). Modeling the formation of the heterodimer with three proteins shows that KRT19 binds CXCL12 and transglutaminase-2 (TGM2), and that TGM2 converts the reversible KRT19-CXCL12 complex into a covalent heterodimer. We validate this model by showing that cancer cells in mouse PDA tumors must express KRT19 and TGM2 to become coated with CXCL12, exclude T cells, and resist immunotherapy with anti-PD-1 antibody. Thus, PDA cells have a cell-autonomous means by which they capture CXCL12 to mediate immune suppression, which is potentially amenable to therapy.One Sentence SummaryCancer cells in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma use transglutaminase-2 to assemble a coating comprised of covalent CXCL12-keratin 19 heterodimers that excludes T cells and mediates resistance to inhibition of the PD-1 T cell checkpoint.


2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaomeng Liu ◽  
Jin Xu ◽  
Bo Zhang ◽  
Jiang Liu ◽  
Chen Liang ◽  
...  

AbstractPancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death and is one of the most difficult-to-treat cancers. Surgical resection and adjuvant therapy have limited effects on the overall survival of PDAC patients. PDAC exhibits an immunosuppressive microenvironment, the immune response predicts survival, and activation of immune system has the potential to produce an efficacious PDAC therapy. However, chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cell immunotherapy and immune checkpoint blockade (ICB), which have produced unprecedented clinical benefits in a variety of different cancers, produce promising results in only some highly selected patients with PDAC. This lack of efficacy may be because existing immunotherapies mainly target the interactions between cancer cells and immune cells. However, PDAC is characterized by an abundant tumor stroma that includes a heterogeneous mixture of immune cells, fibroblasts, endothelial cells, neurons and some molecular events. Immune cells engage in extensive and dynamic crosstalk with stromal components in the tumor tissue in addition to tumor cells, which subsequently impacts tumor suppression or promotion to a large extent. Therefore, exploration of the interactions between the stroma and immune cells may offer new therapeutic opportunities for PDAC. In this review, we discuss how infiltrating immune cells influence PDAC development and explore the contributions of complex components to the immune landscape of tumor tissue. The roles of stromal constituents in immune modulation are emphasized. We also predict potential therapeutic strategies to target signals in the immune network in the abundant stromal microenvironment of PDAC.


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