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Inefficient induction of circulating TAA-specific CD8+ T-cell responses in hepatocellular carcinoma

Tauber, C, Schultheiss, M, De Luca, R, Buettner, N, Llewellyn-Lacey, S, Emmerich, F, Zehe, S, Price, D A ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9416-2737, Neumann-Haefelin, C, Schmitt-Graeff, A, Hoffman, M and Thimme, R 2019. Inefficient induction of circulating TAA-specific CD8+ T-cell responses in hepatocellular carcinoma. Oncotarget 10 (50) , pp. 5194-5206. 10.18632/oncotarget.27146

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Abstract

Background & Aims: In hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), CD8+ T-cell responses targeting tumor-associated antigens (TAA) are considered to be beneficial. However, the molecular profile of TAA-specific CD8+ T cells in HCC is not well defined due to their low frequency. Results: In this study, we demonstrate that TAA-specific CD8+ T-cell responses are not efficiently induced in the peripheral blood of HCC patients as supported by the following observations: First, in HCC patients, frequencies of TAA-specific CD8+ T cells were not increased compared to healthy donors (HD) or patients with liver cirrhosis. Second, a remarkable proportion of TAA-specific CD8+ T cells were naïve despite the presence of antigen within the tumor tissue. Third, antigen-experienced TAA-specific CD8+ T cells lack the characteristic transcriptional regulation of exhausted CD8+ T cells, namely EomeshiTbetdim, and express inhibitory receptors only on a minor proportion of cells. This suggests restricted antigen recognition and further supports the hypothesis of inefficient induction and activation. Methods: By applying peptide/MHCI tetramer-based enrichment, a method of high sensitivity, we now could define the heterogeneity of circulating TAA-specific CD8+ T cells targeting glypican-3, NY-ESO-1, MAGE-A1 and MAGE-A3. We focused on therapy-naïve HCC patients of which the majority underwent transarterial chemoembolization (TACE). Conclusion: Our analysis reveals that circulating TAA-specific CD8+ T cells targeting 4 different immunodominant epitopes are not properly induced in therapy-naïve HCC patients thereby unravelling new and unexpected insights into TAA-specific CD8+ T-cell biology in HCC. This clearly highlights severe limitations of these potentially anti-tumoral T cells that may hamper their biological and clinical relevance in HCC.

Item Type: Article
Date Type: Publication
Status: Published
Schools: Medicine
Publisher: Impact Journals
ISSN: 1949-2553
Date of First Compliant Deposit: 30 September 2019
Date of Acceptance: 17 July 2019
Last Modified: 03 May 2023 22:54
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/125764

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