CD200 Blockade Modulates Tumor Immune Microenvironment but Fails to Show Efficacy in Inhibiting Tumor Growth in a Murine Model of Melanoma.

Fatemeh Talebian,Jin-Qing Liu,William E Carson,Xue-Feng Bai,Jianyu Yu,Kimberly Lynch

doi:10.3389/fcell.2021.739816

Fatemeh Talebian, Jin-Qing Liu + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2021.739816

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Abstract

CD200-CD200R pathway regulates immune responses and has been implicated in the pathogenesis of a number of cancer types. CD200 blockade is considered a strategy for immunotherapy of CD200-positive cancers such as melanoma. Thus, it is critical to understand the potential impacts of CD200 blockade in a more human relevant tumor model. In this study, we evaluated these issues using the CD200+ Yumm1.7 mouse melanoma model. Yumm1.7 cells bear Braf/Pten mutations resembling human melanoma. We found that Yumm1.7 tumors grow significantly faster in CD200R–/– mice compared to wild type mice. Analysis of tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) revealed that tumors from CD200R–/– or anti-CD200 treated mice had downregulated immune cell contents and reduced TCR clonality compared to tumors from untreated wild type mice. T cells also showed impaired effector functions, as reflected by reduced numbers of IFN-γ+ and TNF-α+ T cells. Mechanistically, we found upregulation of the CCL8 gene in CD200R–/– tumors. In vitro co-culture experiments using Yumm1.7 tumor cells with bone marrow derived macrophages (BMDM) from WT and CD200R–/– mice confirmed upregulation of macrophage CCL8 in the absence of CD200-CD200R interaction. Finally, we found that anti-CD200 therapy failed to show efficacy either alone or in combination with checkpoint inhibitors such as anti-PD-1 or anti-CTLA4 in inhibiting Yumm1.7 tumor growth. Given that CD200R-deficiency or anti-CD200 treatment leads to reduced T cell responses in TME, using blockade of CD200 as an immunotherapy for cancers such as melanoma should be practiced with caution.

Highlights

Melanoma accounts for 1% of all skin cancers, but it is the deadliest of all such cancers (Siegel et al, 2018)
Tumors grew faster in CD200R−/− mice compared to their wild type counterpart as measured by higher tumor growth curve (Figure 1B) and bigger area under the tumor volume curve (AUC) (Duan et al, 2012; Figure 1C)
Our results show that the growth of CD200+ Yumm1.7 melanoma is enhanced when CD200R signaling is absent

Summary

Introduction

Melanoma accounts for 1% of all skin cancers, but it is the deadliest of all such cancers (Siegel et al, 2018). Melanoma is sensitive to immune modulation, partially due to the presence of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) in its tumor microenvironment (TME), whose presence correlates with increased survival and reduced metastasis (Candido et al, 2014; Lee et al, 2016). Chemotherapy was the dominant and preferred therapeutic option for melanoma patients. In the past decade, we have seen major advancements in treatment options. Immune inhibitors to checkpoint molecules such as cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen-4 (CTLA-4) (Buchbinder and Hodi, 2016) and programmed cell death (PD-1) (Robert et al, 2019) have shown promise in treating human melanoma. Developing combination immunotherapy strategies or targeting new checkpoint molecules have gained increasing favor in overcoming resistance

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