Very Late Antigen-1 marks functional tumor-resident CD8 T cells and correlates with survival of melanoma patients

• Main Authors: Timothy Murray, Silvia A Fuertes Marraco, Petra Baumgaertner, Natacha Bordry, Laurène Cagnon, Alena Donda, Pedro Romero, Grégory Verdeil, Daniel E. Speiser
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-12-01
• Series: Frontiers in Immunology
• Subjects: Cancer Vaccines; Melanoma; CD103; tissue-resident memory T cells; VLA-1
• Online Access: http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fimmu.2016.00573/full

A major limiting factor in the success of immunotherapy is tumor infiltration by CD8+ T cells, a process that remains poorly understood. In the present study, we characterized homing receptors expressed by human melanoma-specific CD8+ T cells. Our data reveal that P-selectin binding, and expression of the retention integrin, Very Late Antigen (VLA)-1, by vaccine-induced T cells correlate with longer patient survival. Furthermore, we demonstrate that CD8+VLA-1+ tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) are highly enriched in melanoma metastases in diverse tissues. VLA-1-expressing TIL frequently coexpress CD69 and CD103, indicating tissue resident memory cell (TRM) differentiation. We employed a mouse model of melanoma to further characterize VLA-1-expressing TIL. Our data show that VLA-1+ TRM develop in murine tumors within 2 weeks, where they exhibit increased activation status, as well as superior effector functions. In addition, in vivo blockade of either VLA-1 or CD103 significantly impaired control of subcutaneous tumors. Together, our data indicate that VLA-1+ TRM develop in tumors and play an important role in tumor immunity, presenting novel targets for the optimization of cancer immunotherapy.