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Upadhye A, Meza Landeros KE, Ramírez-Suástegui C, Schmiedel BJ, Woo E, Chee SJ, Malicki D, Coufal NG, Gonda D, Levy ML, Greenbaum JA, Seumois G, Crawford J, Roberts WD, Schoenberger SP, Cheroutre H, Ottensmeier CH, Vijayanand P, Ganesan AP. Intra-tumoral T cells in pediatric brain tumors display clonal expansion and effector properties. Nat Cancer 2024:10.1038/s43018-023-00706-9. [PMID: 38228835 DOI: 10.1038/s43018-023-00706-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2023] [Accepted: 12/11/2023] [Indexed: 01/18/2024]
Abstract
Brain tumors in children are a devastating disease in a high proportion of patients. Owing to inconsistent results in clinical trials in unstratified patients, the role of immunotherapy remains unclear. We performed an in-depth survey of the single-cell transcriptomes and clonal relationship of intra-tumoral T cells from children with brain tumors. Our results demonstrate that a large fraction of T cells in the tumor tissue are clonally expanded with the potential to recognize tumor antigens. Such clonally expanded T cells display enrichment of transcripts linked to effector function, tissue residency, immune checkpoints and signatures of neoantigen-specific T cells and immunotherapy response. We identify neoantigens in pediatric brain tumors and show that neoantigen-specific T cell gene signatures are linked to better survival outcomes. Notably, among the patients in our cohort, we observe substantial heterogeneity in the degree of clonal expansion and magnitude of T cell response. Our findings suggest that characterization of intra-tumoral T cell responses may enable selection of patients for immunotherapy, an approach that requires prospective validation in clinical trials.
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Affiliation(s)
- Aditi Upadhye
- La Jolla Institute for Immunology, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Kevin E Meza Landeros
- La Jolla Institute for Immunology, La Jolla, CA, USA
- Center for Genomic Sciences, National Autonomous University of Mexico, Cuernavaca, Mexico
| | | | | | - Edwin Woo
- Southampton University Hospitals NHS Trust, Southampton, UK
| | - Serena J Chee
- Department of Respiratory Medicine, Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool, UK
- Department of Molecular and Clinical Cancer Medicine, Institute of Systems, Molecular and Integrative Biology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
| | - Denise Malicki
- Department of Pathology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
- Rady Children's Hospital, San Diego, CA, USA
| | - Nicole G Coufal
- Rady Children's Hospital, San Diego, CA, USA
- Department of Pediatrics, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - David Gonda
- Rady Children's Hospital, San Diego, CA, USA
- Department of Neurological Surgery, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | - Michael L Levy
- Rady Children's Hospital, San Diego, CA, USA
- Department of Neurological Surgery, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | | | | | - John Crawford
- Rady Children's Hospital, San Diego, CA, USA
- Department of Neurosciences, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
- Department of Pediatrics, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA
- Children's Hospital Orange County, Irvine, CA, USA
| | - William D Roberts
- Rady Children's Hospital, San Diego, CA, USA
- Department of Pediatrics, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
| | | | | | - Christian H Ottensmeier
- La Jolla Institute for Immunology, La Jolla, CA, USA
- Department of Molecular and Clinical Cancer Medicine, Institute of Systems, Molecular and Integrative Biology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
- Clatterbridge Cancer Center NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool, UK
| | - Pandurangan Vijayanand
- La Jolla Institute for Immunology, La Jolla, CA, USA.
- Department of Molecular and Clinical Cancer Medicine, Institute of Systems, Molecular and Integrative Biology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.
- Department of Medicine, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
| | - Anusha-Preethi Ganesan
- La Jolla Institute for Immunology, La Jolla, CA, USA.
- Rady Children's Hospital, San Diego, CA, USA.
- Department of Pediatrics, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
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