Bystander CD4+ T cells infiltrate human tumors and are phenotypically distinct

oleh: Shamin Li, Summer Zhuang, Antja Heit, Si-Lin Koo, Aaron C. Tan, I-Ting Chow, William W. Kwok, Iain Beehuat Tan, Daniel S.W. Tan, Yannick Simoni, Evan W. Newell

Format: Article
Diterbitkan: Taylor & Francis Group 2022-12-01

Deskripsi

Tumor-specific T cells likely underpin effective immune checkpoint-blockade therapies. Yet, most studies focus on Treg cells and CD8+ tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs). Here, we study CD4+ TILs in human lung and colorectal cancers and observe that non-Treg CD4+ TILs average more than 70% of total CD4+ TILs in both cancer types. Leveraging high dimensional analyses including mass cytometry, we reveal that CD4+ TILs are phenotypically heterogeneous, within each tumor and across patients. Consistently, we find different subsets of CD4+ TILs showing characteristics of effectors, tissue resident memory (Trm) or exhausted cells (expressing PD-1, CTLA-4 and CD39). In both cancer types, the frequencies of CD39– non-Treg CD4+ TILs strongly correlate with frequencies of CD39– CD8+ TILs, which we and others have previously shown to be enriched for cells specific for cancer-unrelated antigens (bystanders). Ex-vivo, we demonstrate that CD39– CD4+ TILs can be specific for cancer-unrelated antigens, such as HCMV epitopes. Overall, our findings highlight that CD4+ TILs can also recognize cancer-unrelated antigens and suggest measuring CD39 expression as a straightforward way to quantify or isolate bystander CD4+ T cells.