Blocking the recruitment of naive CD4 ⁺ T cells reverses immunosuppression in breast cancer

Abstract

The origin of tumor-infiltrating Tregs, critical mediators of tumor immunosuppression, is unclear. Here, we show that tumor-infiltrating naive CD4 ⁺ T cells and Tregs in human breast cancer have overlapping TCR repertoires, while hardly overlap with circulating Tregs, suggesting that intratumoral Tregs mainly develop from naive T cells in situ rather than from recruited Tregs. Furthermore, the abundance of naive CD4 ⁺ T cells and Tregs is closely correlated, both indicating poor prognosis for breast cancer patients. Naive CD4 ⁺ T cells adhere to tumor slices in proportion to the abundance of CCL18-producing macrophages. Moreover, adoptively transferred human naive CD4 ⁺ T cells infiltrate human breast cancer orthotopic xenografts in a CCL18-dependent manner. In human breast cancer xenografts in humanized mice, blocking the recruitment of naive CD4 ⁺ T cells into tumor by knocking down the expression of PITPNM3, a CCL18 receptor, significantly reduces intratumoral Tregs and inhibits tumor progression. These findings suggest that breast tumor-infiltrating Tregs arise from chemotaxis of circulating naive CD4 ⁺ T cells that differentiate into Tregs in situ. Inhibiting naive CD4 ⁺ T cell recruitment into tumors by interfering with PITPNM3 recognition of CCL18 may be an attractive strategy for anticancer immunotherapy.