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Spatially resolved multi-omics single-cell analyses inform mechanisms of immune-dysfunction in pancreatic cancer

ABSTRACT: As pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) continues to be recalcitrant to therapeutic interventions including poor response to immunotherapy, albeit effective in other solid malignancies, a more nuanced understanding of the immune microenvironment in PDAC is urgently needed. Using a spatially-resolved multimodal single cell approach we unveil a detailed view of the immune micromilieu in PDAC with specific emphasis on the correlation of immune subtypes with patient survival. We substantiate the exhausted phenotype of CD8 T cells and immunosuppressive features of myeloid cells, and highlight immune subpopulations with potentially underappreciated roles in PDAC, particularly CD4 T cell subsets presenting immunosuppressive phenotypes with varying modes of exhaustion. We also demonstrate the dynamic changes associated with transcriptional reprogramming of immune subtypes within adjacent normal tissue and tumor surrounding stroma, and further reveal striking differences between immune phenotypes in PDAC and lung adenocarcinoma, which at least partially explain their differential responsiveness to current immunotherapies and might have implications for the development of novel treatment strategies.

ORGANISM(S): Homo sapiens

PROVIDER: GSE205354 | GEO | 2023/07/20

REPOSITORIES: GEO

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Project description:Immunotherapeutics represent highly promising agents with the potential to improve patient outcomes in a variety of cancer types. Unfortunately, single-agent immunotherapy has achieved limited clinical benefit to date in patients suffering from pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). This may be due to the presence of a uniquely immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) present in PDACs, which creates a barrier to effective immune surveillance. Critical obstacles to immunotherapy in PDAC tumors include the dense desmoplastic stroma that acts as a barrier to T-cell infiltration and the high numbers of tumor-associated immunosuppressive cells. We have identified hyperactivated focal adhesion kinase (FAK) activity in neoplastic PDAC cells as a significant regulator of the fibrotic and immunosuppressive TME. We found that FAK activity was elevated in human PDAC tissues and correlates with high levels of fibrosis and poor CD8+ cytotoxic T-cell infiltration. Single-agent FAK inhibition (VS-4718) dramatically limited tumor progression, resulting in a doubling of survival in the p48-Cre/LSL-KrasG12D/p53Flox/+ (KPC) mouse model of human PDAC. This alteration in tumor progression was associated with dramatically reduced tumor fibrosis, decreased numbers of tumor-infiltrating immature myeloid cells and immunosuppressive macrophages. We postulated that these desirable effects of FAK inhibition on the TME might render PDAC tumors more sensitive to immunotherapy. Accordingly, we found that VS-4718 rendered the previously unresponsive KPC mouse model responsive to anti-PD1 and anti-CTLA4 antagonists leading to a nearly tripling of survival times. These data suggest that FAK inhibition increases immune surveillance by overcoming the fibrotic and immunosuppressive PDAC TME thus rendering tumors more responsive to immunotherapy. We treated KP orthotopic tumor-bearing mice with vehicle and FAK inhibitor (FAKi) for 14 days, then extracted total RNA from tumor tissues.

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Spatially resolved multi-omics single-cell analyses inform mechanisms of immune-dysfunction in pancreatic cancer

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