A local human Vδ1 T cell population is associated with survival in nonsmall-cell lung cancer

Yin Wu*, Dhruva Biswas, Ieva Usaite, Mihaela Angelova, Stefan Boeing, Takahiro Karasaki, Selvaraju Veeriah, Justyna Czyzewska-Khan, Cienne Morton, Magdalene Joseph, Sonya Hessey, James Reading, Andrew Georgiou, Maise Al-Bakir, Nicolai J. Birkbak, Gillian Price, Mohammed Khalil, Keith Kerr, Shirley Richardson, Heather CheyneTracey Cruickshank, Gareth A. Wilson, Rachel Rosenthal, Hugo Aerts, Madeleine Hewish, Girija Anand, Sajid Khan, Kelvin Lau, Michael Sheaff, Peter Schmid, Louise Lim, John Conibear, Roland Schwarz, Tom L. Kaufmann, Matthew Huska, Jacqui Shaw, Joan Riley, Lindsay Primrose, Dean Fennell, Allan Hackshaw, Yenting Ngai, Abigail Sharp, Oliver Pressey, Sean Smith, Nicole Gower, Harjot Kaur Dhanda, Kitty Chan, Sonal Chakraborty, Kevin Litchfield, Krupa Thakkar, TRACERx Consortium

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Murine tissues harbor signature γδ T cell compartments with profound yet differential impacts on carcinogenesis. Conversely, human tissue-resident γδ cells are less well defined. In the present study, we show that human lung tissues harbor a resident Vδ1 γδ T cell population. Moreover, we demonstrate that Vδ1 T cells with resident memory and effector memory phenotypes were enriched in lung tumors compared with nontumor lung tissues. Intratumoral Vδ1 T cells possessed stem-like features and were skewed toward cytolysis and helper T cell type 1 function, akin to intratumoral natural killer and CD8 + T cells considered beneficial to the patient. Indeed, ongoing remission post-surgery was significantly associated with the numbers of CD45RA CD27 effector memory Vδ1 T cells in tumors and, most strikingly, with the numbers of CD103 + tissue-resident Vδ1 T cells in nonmalignant lung tissues. Our findings offer basic insights into human body surface immunology that collectively support integrating Vδ1 T cell biology into immunotherapeutic strategies for nonsmall cell lung cancer.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)696-709
Number of pages14
JournalNature Cancer
Volume3
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2022

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