August 20, 2024
Source: Clin Cancer Re. 2024 Aug 20. doi: 10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-24-1594. Online ahead of print.
Authors: Tereza Lanickova, Michal Hensler, Lenka Kasikova, Sarka Vosahlikova, Artemis Angelidou, Josef Pasulka, Hannah Griebler, Jana Drozenova, Katerina Mojzisova, Ann Vankerckhoven, Jan Laco, Aleš Ryška, Pavel Dundr, Roman Kocian, David Cibula, Tomas Brtnicky, Petr Skapa, Francis Jacob, Marek Kovar, Ivan Praznovec, Iain A McNeish, Michael J Halaska, Lukas Rob, An Coosemans, Sandra Orsulic, Lorenzo Galluzzi, Radek Spisek, Jitka Fucikova
Purpose: Patients with high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma (HGSOC) are virtually insensitive to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) employed as standalone therapeutics, at least in part reflecting microenvironmental immunosuppression. Thus, conventional chemotherapeutics and targeted anticancer agents that not only mediate cytotoxic effects but also promote the recruitment of immune effector cells to the HGSOC microenvironment stand out as promising combinatorial partners for ICIs in this oncological indication.
Experimental design: We harnessed a variety of transcriptomic, spatial and functional assays to characterize the differential impact of neo-adjuvant paclitaxel-carboplatin on the immunological configuration of paired primary and metastatic HGSOC biopsies as compared to NACT-naïve HGSOC samples from 5 independent patient cohorts.
Results: We found neo-adjuvant chemotherapy (NACT)-driven endoplasmic reticulum stress and calreticulin exposure in metastatic HGSOC lesions culminates with the establishment of a dense immune infiltrate including follicular T cells (TFH cells), a prerequisite for mature tertiary lymphoid structure (TLS) formation. In this context, TLS maturation was associated with an increased intratumoral density of ICI-sensitive TCF1+PD-1+ CD8+ T cells over their ICI-insensitive TIM-3+PD-1+ counterparts. Consistent with this notion, chemotherapy coupled with a PD-1-targeting ICI provided a significant survival benefit over either therapeutic approach in syngeneic models of HGSOC bearing high (but not low) tumor mutational burden.
Conclusion: Altogether, our findings suggest that NACT promotes TLS formation and maturation in HGSOC lesions, de facto preserving an intratumoral ICI-sensitive T-cell phenotype. These observations emphasize the role of rational design, especially relative to the administration schedule, for clinical trials testing chemotherapy plus ICIs in patients with HGSOC.