Article
作者: Stritzker, Jonas ; Boettler, Tobias ; Lehr, Saskia ; Thimme, Robert ; Meng, Ke ; Langenbach, Marlene ; Sagar, Sagar ; Zeiser, Robert ; Zoldan, Katharina ; Hofmann, Maike ; Venhoff, Ana Cecilia ; Fetsch, Viktor ; Meiss, Frank ; Rafei-Shamsabadi, David ; Buettner, Nico ; Winkler, Frances ; Neumann-Haefelin, Christoph ; Godbole, Ira ; Solis, Sabrina ; Diehl, Rebecca ; Boerries, Melanie ; Severa, Elizabeth ; Bengsch, Bertram ; Rana, Nisha ; Weber, Jeffrey S ; Herati, Ramin S ; Voll, Reinhard E ; Zhang, Zhen
The mechanisms underlying the efficacy of anti-programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) and anti-cytotoxic T lymphocyte-associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) therapy are incompletely understood. Here, by immune profiling responding PD-1+CD8+ T (TResp) cell populations from patients with advanced melanoma, we identified differential programming of TResp cells in response to combination therapy, from an exhausted toward a more cytotoxic effector program. This effect does not occur with anti-PD-1 monotherapy. Single-cell transcriptome and T cell receptor repertoire analysis was used to identify altered effector programming of expanding PD-1+CD8+ T cell clones with distinct regulon usage, STAT1 and STAT3 utilization and antitumor specificity connected to interleukin (IL)-21 signaling in combination and anti-CTLA-4 monotherapy. Therapeutic efficacy of CTLA-4 blockade was lost in B16F10 melanoma models with either Il21r- deficiency or anti-IL-21 receptor blockade. Together, these results show how IL-21 signaling to TResp is critical for anti-CTLA-4-based checkpoint therapies and highlight major signaling differences to anti-PD-1 monotherapy.