scholarly journals 940 Targeting DKK1 to reverse immunosuppressive macrophages and enhance PD-1 blockade therapy in gastric cancer

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (Suppl 3) ◽  
pp. A986-A986
Author(s):  
Tao Shi ◽  
Yipeng Zhang ◽  
Yue Wang ◽  
Yunfeng Pan ◽  
Hanbing Wang ◽  
...  

BackgroundGastric cancer (GC) is a highly heterogeneous and immunosuppressive cancer type with poor prognosis. Current immunotherapies like immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) have very modest therapeutic effect in GC patients, reflecting urgent need for exploring new immunotherapeutic targets.MethodsIHC and mRNA analysis of 384 patients from Drum Tower Hospital Cohort and 1192 patients from other databases were performed to investigate Dickkopf-1 (DKK1) expression and local immune status. The MFC-challenged subcutaneous and abdominal dissemination GC models were established, and the impact of DKK1 blockade on gastric tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) and anti-tumor responses was explored by flow cytometry and RNA sequencing. In vivo immune cell-depletion GC models were constructed to further assess the function of DKK1 on different immune cell types. RAW264.7 and mouse bone marrow derived macrophages (BMDMs) were employed to analyze DKK1 modulation on macrophages in vitro by Cytometric Bead Array, flow cytometry and western bolt.ResultsIn present study, we found high DKK1 expression is associated with poor overall survival and worse immune status in GC patients. DKK1 blockade could improve gastric TIME, including increased accumulation and activation of CD8+ T cells and NK cells, and trigger an effective anti-tumor response both in subcutaneous and abdominal dissemination GC models. DKK1 directly induces macrophages towards an immunosuppressive phenotype, while the TIME improvement and tumor reduction depend on the reversion of immunosuppressive macrophages mediated by DKK1 blockade. Furthermore, combined inhibition of PD-1 and DKK1 could achieve superior anti-tumor effect on GC models.ConclusionsThus, our work identifies a new role of DKK1 to induce immunosuppressive TIME through macrophage modulation, and reveals DKK1 to be a novel and promising immunotherapeutic target for GC.Ethics ApprovalThe collection and analysis of tumor tissue sections were approved by the Ethics Committee of Nanjing University Medical School Affiliated Drum Tower Hospital (2021-324-01). All animal experiments were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Drum Tower Hospital (approval number: 2020AE01064).

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 153303382097068
Author(s):  
Yu Xiao ◽  
Hongpan Zhang ◽  
Guobo Du ◽  
Xue Meng ◽  
Tingting Wu ◽  
...  

Objective: To analyze the expression and clinical significance of retinoic acid-induced protein 14 ( RAI14) in gastric cancer and its relationship with immune cell infiltration by mining databases such as Oncomine, TIMER, UALCAN, and Kaplan Meier Plotter. Methods: RAI14 expression in various cancer types was analyzed using the Oncomine and TIMER databases. We used the Kaplan-Meier Plotter and UALCAN databases to evaluate the impact of RAI14 on clinicopathological parameters in gastric cancer. The correlation between RAI14 expression and immune cell invasion was studied using TIMER. TIMER was also used to analyze the correlation between RAI14 expression and marker levels of tumor-infiltrating immune cells. Results: High RAI14 expression in gastric cancer was significantly associated with poor overall survival (OS; hazard ratio [HR] = 1.82, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.53–2.15, P < 0.001) and poor progression-free survival (PFS; HR = 2.16, 95% CI = 1.77–2.65, P < 0.001). Furthermore, high RAI14 expression was significantly associated with poor prognosis of patients with stage 2–4 gastric cancer, but not with OS and PFS of stage 1 patients (OS P = 0.17; PFS P = 0.09), and patients with stage N0 PFS had nothing to do (PFS P = 0.238). RAI14 expression was positively correlated with the infiltration levels of monocytes, tumor-associated macrophages, macrophages, neutrophils, and Treg cells in gastric cancer. Besides, RAI14 expression was closely related to various marker genes in immune cells. Conclusion: RAI14 is highly expressed in gastric cancer, and its expression level is correlated with the prognosis of patients with gastric cancer. RAI14 plays also an important role in the recruitment and regulation of infiltrating immune cells and is, thus, expected to become a target for the optimal treatment of gastric cancer.


2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (50) ◽  
pp. E11701-E11710 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoong Wearn Lim ◽  
Haiyin Chen-Harris ◽  
Oleg Mayba ◽  
Steve Lianoglou ◽  
Arthur Wuster ◽  
...  

Cancer immunotherapy has emerged as an effective therapy in a variety of cancers. However, a key challenge in the field is that only a subset of patients who receive immunotherapy exhibit durable response. It has been hypothesized that host genetics influences the inherent immune profiles of patients and may underlie their differential response to immunotherapy. Herein, we systematically determined the association of common germline genetic variants with gene expression and immune cell infiltration of the tumor. We identified 64,094 expression quantitative trait loci (eQTLs) that associated with 18,210 genes (eGenes) across 24 human cancers. Overall, eGenes were enriched for their being involved in immune processes, suggesting that expression of immune genes can be shaped by hereditary genetic variants. We identified the endoplasmic reticulum aminopeptidase 2 (ERAP2) gene as a pan-cancer type eGene whose expression levels stratified overall survival in a subset of patients with bladder cancer receiving anti–PD-L1 (atezolizumab) therapy. Finally, we identified 103 gene signature QTLs (gsQTLs) that were associated with predicted immune cell abundance within the tumor microenvironment. Our findings highlight the impact of germline SNPs on cancer-immune phenotypes and response to therapy; and these analyses provide a resource for integration of germline genetics as a component of personalized cancer immunotherapy.


Author(s):  
Fuwen Yao ◽  
Yongqiang Zhan ◽  
Zuhui Pu ◽  
Ying Lu ◽  
Jiao Chen ◽  
...  

Gastric cancer (GC) is a malignant disease of the digestive tract and a life-threatening disease worldwide. Ferroptosis, an iron-dependent cell death caused by lipid peroxidation, is reported to be highly correlated with gastric tumorigenesis and immune cell activity. However, the underlying relationship between ferroptosis and the tumor microenvironment in GC and potential intervention strategies have not been unveiled. In this study, we profiled the transcriptome and prognosis data of ferroptosis-related genes (FRGs) in GC samples of the TCGA-STAD dataset. The infiltrating immune cells in GC were estimated using the CIBERSORT and XCELL algorithms. We found that the high expression of the hub FRGs (MYB, PSAT1, TP53, and LONP1) was positively correlated with poor overall survival in GC patients. The results were validated in an external GC cohort (GSE62254). Further immune cell infiltration analysis revealed that CD4+ T cells were the major infiltrated cells in the tumor microenvironment of GC. Moreover, the hub FRGs were significantly positively correlated with activated CD4+ T cell infiltration, especially Th cells. The gene features in the high-FRG score group were enriched in cell division, DNA repair, protein folding, T cell receptor, Wnt and NIK/NF-kappaB signaling pathways, indicating that the hub FRGs may mediate CD4+ T cell activation by these pathways. In addition, an upstream transcriptional regulation network of the hub FRGs by lncRNAs was also developed. Three lncRNAs (A2M-AS1, C2orf27A, and ZNF667-AS1) were identified to be related to the expression of the hub FRGs. Collectively, these results showed that lncRNA A2M-AS1, C2orf27A, and ZNF667-AS1 may target the hub FRGs and impair CD4+ T cell activation, which finally leads to poor prognosis of GC. Effective interventions for the above lncRNAs and the hub FRGs can help promote CD4+ T cell activation in GC patients and improve the efficacy of immunotherapy. These findings provide a novel idea of GC immunotherapy and hold promise for future clinical application.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (15_suppl) ◽  
pp. 3025-3025
Author(s):  
Deqiang Wang ◽  
Deyu Chen ◽  
Bo Shen ◽  
Xiaofeng Chen ◽  
Mingzhe Xiao ◽  
...  

3025 Background: Radical surgery with subsequent adjuvant chemotherapy was effective treatment for early-stage gastric cancer (GC) patients. Unfortunately, after optimal multimodality therapy, up to 30% to 40% of patients undergoing resection will relapse within 5 years. There are no validated prognostic and predictive biomarkers for GC patients who receive adjuvant chemotherapy, and current patient selection is based mainly on postoperative pathological staging. Defective mismatch repair (MMR) or microsatellite instability (MSI) may affect GC outcome. Polymorphisms of MMR genes with a low-penetrant effect can cause heterogeneous MMR capability among individuals. It is not known about the impact of these polymorphisms on GC outcome. Methods: The polymorphisms rs1800734 in MLH1, rs2303428 and rs3732183 in MSH2, rs735943 in EXO1, and rs11797 in TREX1 were selected and analyzed in independent discovery and validation sets that included 167 and 593 patients, respectively. MSI was determined. Results: In the discovery set, both the rs2303428 TC+CC and the rs11797 GA+AA genotypes significantly correlated with poor overall survival (OS; P < 0.05). In the validation set, we confirmed the prognostic association for the rs2303428 TC+CC genotype (P = 0.036) but not for the rs11797 GA+AA genotype (P = 0.737). Furthermore, the prognostic role of the rs2303428 TC+CC genotype was observed in non-cardia (P = 0.005) but not in cardia GC (P = 0.934). The multivariate model showed that the rs2303428 TC+CC genotype was an independent predictor for OS in non-cardia patients (HR = 1.54; 95% CI: 1.02-2.32; P = 0.040). Moreover, fluoropyrimidines-based adjuvant chemotherapy significantly improved OS (HR = 0.29; 95% CI: 0.15-0.58; P < 0.001) for non-cardia patients with the rs2303428 TC+CC genotype but not for those with the rs2303428 TT genotype. The rs2303428 genotypes were not associated with MSI frequency. Conclusions: The rs2303428 TC+CC genotype may predict prognosis and adjuvant chemotherapy benefit in non-cardia GC patients independent of MSI. To our knowledge, our study is the first to report the prognostic and predictive roles of MMR genotype in GC. Although prospective validation is necessary, our findings have the potential to improve patient selection for adjuvant chemotherapy and spare large numbers of GC patients’ unnecessary therapy.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weifeng Yu ◽  
Zishao Zhong ◽  
Guihua He ◽  
Wang Zhang ◽  
Zhenhao Ye ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Inhibin subunit beta A (INHBA) is reportedly a potential prognostic biomarker for a variety of cancers. However, its role in gastric cancer (GC) remains elusive. Methods: The expression of INHBA in GC and healthy tissues based on the data obtained from the UCSC Xena database. Logistic regression and Cox regression was performed to explore the correlation between clinical indicators and INHBA expression. Kaplan–Meier curve analysis was performed to assess the impact of INHBA expression on overall survival(OS). In addition, Received operating characteristic curve analysis was implied to clarify the diagnostic role of INHBA in GC. Functional analyses were conducted to explain the potential functions and enrichment pathways for INHBA. TIMER and GEPIA databases were used to calculate the confidence between INHBA and immune cell infiltration in GC. Results: INHBA was upregulated in GC(P < 0.001) and associated with a poor prognosis(P = 0.037). INHBA expression was an independent risk factor for OS(P = 0.004). Additionally, INHBA was a potential diagnostic marker in GC(AUC=0.961) and it was associated with extracellular matrix organization, response to growth factor, and cell-substrate adhesion. Tumor-associated signaling pathways, such as Wnt, Hippo, and p53, were associated with INHBA. Reactome pathways, such as collagen formation and extracellular matrix organization, were significantly enriched. Moreover, high INHBA expression displayed a strong correlation with immune cell infiltration, especially with macrophage infiltration in GC.Conclusions: INHBA could be a potential prognostic biomarker for GC and may drive the abnormal activity of critical cancer-associated pathways, potentially contributing to immune cell infiltration to promote GC development and becoming a new drug target for targeted GC therapies.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tinghui Wu ◽  
Yongchao Li ◽  
Shujuan Gong ◽  
Ruijun Shi ◽  
Hangzheng Zhou ◽  
...  

Abstract Background CXCL9 also known as an interferon gamma-inducible chemokine that belonging to the CXC chemokine family. It plays a role in promoting chemotaxis, inducing leukocyte differentiation and multiplication, and triggering tissue extravasation. Methods The TIMER (Tumor Immune Estimation Resource) and cancer microarray database Oncomine were used to dig at CXCL9 expression. The clinic prognostic level of CXCL9 was evaluated via Kaplan-Meier plotter. Then, Using TIMER and GEPIA, we investigated whether CXCL9 expression impacted cancer immune infiltrates. Results CXCL9 expression has been found to be significantly lower in ovarian and gastric cancers relative to normal tissues. In patients with ovarian cancer (OS HR = 0.78, P = 0.0017; PFS HR = 0.85, R = 0.015) and gastric cancer (OS HR = 0.55, P = 1.1e-08; PFS HR = 0.58, R = 7.6e-07), low CXCL9 expression was correlation to PFS (progression-free survival) and OS (poor overall survival). Furthermore, in OV and GC, CXCL9 was shown to have a close interaction with tumor-infiltrating immunity cells (B cells, CD4 + and CD8 + T cells, macrophages, neutrophils, and dendritic cells). CXCL9 expression, on the other hand, was shown to be closely related to several immune markers. Conclusion In OV and GC, CXCL9 mRNA level is strongly associated with prognosis and levels of penetration tumor-infiltrating immunity cell. The CXCL9 expression may also play a role in controlling TAMs (tumor-associated macrophages), DCs (Dendritic cells), CTLs (cytotoxic lymphocytes), and NK (natural killer) cells in OV and GC. CXCL9 may be seen as an independent marker that assesses the prognosis in OV and GC patients. Besides, CXCL9 expression level also can assess the immune cell subtypes of tumor microenvironment in OV and GC.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hexiang Yin ◽  
Yao Zhang ◽  
Yan Xu ◽  
Bin Peng ◽  
Liying Cui ◽  
...  

There is an increasing need for better understanding of the impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) on patients with neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorder (NMOSD). A few pilot studies have investigated COVID-19 infections in NMOSD, but few studies have addressed disease activity and immune status of these patients during the pandemic. We carried out a cross-sectional study to examine immune status, relapses, and COVID-19 infections in a cohort of NMOSD patients using an electronic patient registry (MSNMOBase) for multiple sclerosis and related disorders. An online questionnaire was administered to all NMOSD patients in the registry from January 1, 2011, to June 1, 2020. Clinical demographic characteristics, immune status, relapses, treatments, COVID-19 infections, and preventive measures were evaluated. Of the 752 registered patients, 535 (71.1%) with qualified data were included. A total of 486 used preventive therapies during the pandemic, including mycophenolate mofetil (71.2%), azathioprine (13.3%), and other immunosuppressants (6.4%). Neither median immune cell counts nor immunoglobulin levels (p &gt; 0.05) were significantly different between patients with or without immunosuppression. During the pandemic, no patients were diagnosed with COVID-19, and the majority (&gt;95%) took one or more effective protective measures (e.g., wearing a mask and social distancing). However, a significantly higher annualized relapse rate (ARR) was observed in the 33 patients with treatment interruptions due to the pandemic compared to before it (p &lt; 0.05), whereas ARR changes were not found in patients with continuous treatments or those without treatments (p &gt; 0.05). Interruption frequency was significantly higher in patients with relapses compared to those without (34.9 vs. 15.7%, p &lt; 0.01). For stable NMOSD patients during the pandemic, the risk of relapse due to treatment interruption may be higher than the risk of COVID-19 infection when protective measures are used, and continuous relapse-prevention treatments may be necessary.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuwei Li ◽  
Ruijun Shi ◽  
Hangzheng Zhou ◽  
Dongyang Wang ◽  
Kunlong Zhu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: CXCL9 also known as an interferon gamma-inducible chemokine that belonging to the CXC chemokine family. It plays a role in promoting chemotaxis, inducing leukocyte differentiation and multiplication, and triggering tissue extravasation. Methods: The TIMER (Tumor Immune Estimation Resource) and cancer microarray database Oncomine were used to dig at CXCL9 expression. The clinic prognostic level of CXCL9 was evaluated via Kaplan-Meier plotter. Then, Using TIMER and GEPIA, we investigated whether CXCL9 expression impacted cancer immune infiltrates. Results: CXCL9 expression has been found to be significantly lower in ovarian and gastric cancers relative to normal tissues. In patients with ovarian cancer (OS HR = 0.78, P = 0.0017; PFS HR = 0.85, R = 0.015) and gastric cancer (OS HR = 0.55, P = 1.1e-08; PFS HR = 0.58, R = 7.6e-07), low CXCL9 expression was correlation to PFS (progression-free survival) and OS (poor overall survival). Furthermore, in OV and GC, CXCL9 was shown to have a close interaction with tumor-infiltrating immunity cells (B cells, CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, macrophages, neutrophils, and dendritic cells). CXCL9 expression, on the other hand, was shown to be closely related to several immune markers.Conclusion: In OV and GC, CXCL9 mRNA level is strongly associated with prognosis and levels of penetration tumor-infiltrating immunity cell. The CXCL9 expression may also play a role in controlling TAMs (tumor-associated macrophages), DCs (Dendritic cells), CTLs (cytotoxic lymphocytes), and NK (natural killer) cells in OV and GC. CXCL9 may be seen as an independent marker that assesses the prognosis in OV and GC patients. Besides, CXCL9 expression level also can assess the immune cell subtypes of tumor microenvironment in OV and GC.


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