Sarah K Whiteside, Francis M Grant, Giorgia Alvisi, James Clarke, Leqi Tang, Charlotte J Imianowski, Baojie Zhang, Alexander C Evans, Alexander J Wesolowski, Alberto G Conti, Jie Yang, Sarah N Lauder, Mathew Clement, Ian R Humphreys, James Dooley, Oliver Burton, Adrian Liston, Marco Alloisio, Emanuele Voulaz, Jean Langhorne, Klaus Okkenhaug, Enrico Lugli, Rahul Roychoudhuri
Regulatory T (Treg ) cells contribute to immune homeostasis but suppress immune responses to cancer. Strategies to disrupt Treg cell-mediated cancer immunosuppression have been met with limited clinical success, but the underlying mechanisms for treatment failure are poorly understood. By modeling Treg cell-targeted immunotherapy in mice, we find that CD4+ Foxp3- conventional T (Tconv ) cells acquire suppressive function upon depletion of Foxp3+ Treg cells, limiting therapeutic efficacy. Foxp3- Tconv cells within tumors adopt a Treg cell-like transcriptional profile upon ablation of Treg cells and acquire the ability to suppress T cell activation and proliferation ex vivo...
December 15, 2023: Science Immunology