Lymph node and tumor-associated PD-L1+ macrophages antagonize dendritic cell vaccines by suppressing CD8+ T cells
Jenny Sprooten, Isaure Vanmeerbeek, Angeliki Datsi, Jannes Govaerts, Stefan Naulaerts, Raquel S. Laureano, Daniel Borràs, Anna Calvet, Vanshika Malviya, Marc Kuballa, Jörg Felsberg, Michael Sabel, Marion Rapp, Christiane B. Knobbe‐Thomsen, Peng Liu, Liwei Zhao, Oliver Kepp, Louis Boon, Sabine Tejpar, Jannie Borst, Guido Kroemer, Susan Schlenner, Steven De Vleeschouwer, Rüdiger V. Sorg, Abhishek D. Garg
Abstract
Current immunotherapies provide limited benefits against T cell-depleted tumors, calling for therapeutic innovation. Using multi-omics integration of cancer patient data, we predict a type I interferon (IFN) response HIGH state of dendritic cell (DC) vaccines, with efficacious clinical impact. However, preclinical DC vaccines recapitulating this state by combining immunogenic cancer cell death with induction of type I IFN responses fail to regress mouse tumors lacking T cell infiltrates. Here, in lymph nodes (LNs), instead of activating CD4 + /CD8 + T cells, DCs stimulate immunosuppressive programmed death-ligand 1-positive (PD-L1 + ) LN-associated macrophages (LAMs). Moreover, DC vaccines also stimulate PD-L1 + tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs). This creates two anatomically distinct niches of PD-L1 + macrophages that suppress CD8 + T cells. Accordingly, a combination of PD-L1 blockade with DC vaccines achieves significant tumor regression by depleting PD-L1 + macrophages, suppressing myeloid inflammation, and de-inhibiting effector/stem-like memory T cells. Importantly, clinical DC vaccines also potentiate T cell-suppressive PD-L1 + TAMs in glioblastoma patients. We propose that a multimodal immunotherapy and vaccination regimen is mandatory to overcome T cell-depleted tumors.