Jing Wu, Ziqing Chen, Stina L Wickström, Juan Gao, Xingkang He, Xu Jing, Jieyu Wu, Qiqiao Du, Muyi Yang, Yi Chen, Dingding Zhang, Xin Yin, Ziheng Guo, Lasse Jensen, Yunlong Yang, Wei Tao, Andreas Lundqvist, Rolf Kiessling, Yihai Cao
Recognition of specific antigens expressed in cancer cells is the initial process of cytolytic T cell-mediated cancer killing. However, this process can be affected by other non-cancerous cellular components in the tumor microenvironment. Here, it is shown that interleukin-33 (IL-33)-activated macrophages protect melanoma cells from tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte-mediated killing. Mechanistically, IL-33 markedly upregulates metalloprotease 9 (MMP-9) expression in macrophages, which acts as a sheddase to trim NKG2D, an activating receptor expressed on the surface of natural killer (NK) cells, CD8+ T cells, subsets of CD4+ T cells, iNKT cells, and γδ T cells...
November 2021: Advanced Science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany)