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Melanoma and Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) are highly aggressive cancers of the skin that frequently escape immune recognition and acquire resistance to chemotherapeutic agents, which poses a major obstacle to successful cancer treatment. Recently, a new class of therapeutics targeting the programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) immune checkpoint receptor has shown remarkable efficacy in the treatment of both cancers. Blockade of PD-1 on T cells activates cancer-specific immune responses that can mediate tumor regression. The data presented in this Ph.D. thesis demonstrates that PD-1 is also expressed by subsets of cancer cells in melanoma and MCC. Moreover, this work identifies PD-1 as a novel tumor cell-intrinsic growth receptor, even in the absence of T cell immunity. PD-1 is expressed by tumorigenic cell subsets in melanoma patient samples and established human and murine cell lines that also co-express ABCB5, a marker of immunoregulatory tumor- initiating cells in melanoma. Consistently, melanoma-expressed PD-1 downmodulates T effector cell functions and increases the intratumoral frequency of tolerogenic myeloid- derived suppressor cells. PD-1 inhibition on melanoma cells by RNA interference, blocking antibodies, or mutagenesis of melanoma-PD-1 signaling motifs suppresses tumor growth in immunocompetent, immunocompromised, and PD-1-deficient tumor graft recipient mice. Conversely, melanoma-specific PD-1 overexpression enhances tumorigenicity, including in mice lacking adaptive immunity. Engagement of melanoma- PD-1 by its ligand PD-L1 promotes tumor growth, whereas melanoma-PD-L1 inhibition or knockout of host-PD-L1 attenuates growth of PD-1-positive melanomas. Mechanistically, the melanoma-PD-1 receptor activates mTOR signaling mediators, including ribosomal protein S6. In a proof-of-concept study, tumoral expression of phospho-S6 in pretreatment tumor biopsies correlated with clinical responses to anti-PD-1 therapy in melanoma patients. In MCC, PD-1 is similarly co-expressed by ABCB5+ cancer cell subsets in clinical tumor specimens and established human cell lines. ABCB5 renders MCC cells resistant to the standard-of-care chemotherapeutic agents, carboplatin and etoposide. Antibody-mediated ABCB5 blockade reverses chemotherapy resistance and inhibits tumor xenograft growth by enhancing chemotherapy-induced tumor cell killing. Furthermore, engagement of MCC-expressed PD-1 by its ligands, PD-L1 and PD-L2, promotes proliferation and activates MCC-intrinsic mTOR signaling. Consistently, antibody- mediated PD-1 blockade inhibits MCC tumor xenograft growth and phosphorylation of mTOR effectors in immunocompromised mice. In summary, these findings identify cancer cell-intrinsic functions of the PD-1 pathway in tumorigenesis and suggest that blocking melanoma- and MCC-expressed PD-1 might contribute to the striking clinical efficacy of anti-PD-1 therapy. Additionally, these results establish ABCB5 as a previously unrecognized chemoresistance mechanism in MCC.
Malignant melanoma is the most severe form of all skin cancers with a particular poor prognosis once metastases have developed. Angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels, is a prominent feature of human melanoma, which have angiogenic activity already early in development. This is at least partly ascribed to the action of MAPK- and PI3K pathways which are hyperactivated in most melanoma. Animal models which combine in depth in vivo examinations with the opportunity to perform small molecular screens are well suited to gain a more detailed insight into how this type of cancer modulates its angiogenic program. Here, a first transgenic melanoma angiogenesis model was established in the fish species Oryzias latipes (Japanese medaka). In this model, tumors are generated by the pigment cell-specific expression of the oncogenic receptor tyrosine kinase Xmrk. Xmrk is a mutated version of the fish Egfp. Furthermore, to get an angiogenesis model, a medaka line with endothelial cell specific GFP expression was used. By using crosses between these Xmrk- and GFP transgenic fishes, it was shown that angiogenesis occurs in a reactive oxygen species- and NF-κB-dependent manner, but was hypoxia-independent. It was observed that blood vessel sprouting and branch point formation was elevated in this model and furthermore that sprouting could even be induced by single transformed cells. The mouse melanocytes expressing the oncogenic receptor tyrosine kinase Xmrk as well human melanoma cells, which display various oncogenic alterations, produced pro-angiogenic factors, most prominently angiogenin, via NF-κB signaling. Furthermore, inhibiting NF-κB action prevented tumor angiogenesis and even led to the regression of existing tumor blood vessels. In summary, the present medaka melanoma angiogenesis model displays a high sensitivity for angiogenesis detection and is perfectly suited as in vivo model for the testing of anti-angiogenesis inhibitors, as exemplified by the NF-kappaB inhibitor.
Furthermore, results indicate that it might be a promising anti-tumor strategy to target signaling pathways such as the NF-κB pathway which are able to induce angiogenesis-dependent as well as -independent pro-tumorigenic effects.
Die Rolle transposabler Elemente in der Genese des malignen Melanom im Fischmodell Xiphophorus
(2023)
Der Name der transposablen Elemente beruht auf ihrer Fähigkeit, ihre genomische Position verändern zu können. Durch Chromosomenaberrationen, Insertionen oder Deletionen können ihre genomischen Transpositionen genetische Instabilität verursachen. Inwieweit sie darüber hinaus regulatorischen Einfluss auf Zellfunktionen besitzen, ist Gegenstand aktueller Forschung ebenso wie die daraus resultierende Frage nach der Gesamtheit ihrer biologischen Signifikanz. Die Weiterführung experimenteller Forschung ist unabdingbar, um weiterhin offenen Fragen nachzugehen. Das Xiphophorus-Melanom-Modell stellt hierbei eines der ältesten Tiermodelle zur Erforschung des malignen Melanoms dar. Durch den klar definierten genetischen Hintergrund eignet es sich hervorragend zur Erforschung des bösartigen schwarzen Hautkrebses, welcher nach wie vor die tödlichste aller bekannten Hautkrebsformen darstellt. Die hier vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Rolle transposabler Elemente in der malignen Melanomgenese von Xiphophorus.