Tumor-derived CCL2 drives tumor growth and immunosuppression in IDH1-mutant cholangiocarcinoma.

Background And Aims: Isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 (IDH1)-mutant cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) is a highly lethal subtype of hepatobiliary cancer that is often resistant to immune checkpoint inhibitor therapies. We evaluated the effects of IDH1-mutations in CCA cells on the tumor immune microenvironment and identify opportunities for therapeutic intervention.

Approach And Results: Analysis of 2,606 human CCA tumors using deconvolution of RNA-sequencing data identified decreased CD8 T cell and increased M2-like tumor-associated macrophage (TAM) infiltration in IDH1-mutant compared to IDH1-wild type tumors.

Immunotherapy response induces divergent tertiary lymphoid structure morphologies in hepatocellular carcinoma.

Tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS) are associated with improved response in solid tumors treated with immune checkpoint blockade, but understanding of the prognostic and predictive value of TLS and the circumstances of their resolution is incomplete. Here we show that in hepatocellular carcinoma treated with neoadjuvant immunotherapy, high intratumoral TLS density at the time of surgery is associated with pathologic response and improved relapse-free survival. In areas of tumor regression, we identify a noncanonical involuted morphology of TLS marked by dispersion of the B cell follicle, persistence of a T cell zone enriched for T cell-mature dendritic cell interactions and increased expression of T cell memory markers.

Transfer Learning Reveals Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts Are Associated with Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition and Inflammation in Cancer Cells in Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma.

Unlabelled: Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is an aggressive malignancy characterized by an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment enriched with cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAF). This study used a convergence approach to identify tumor cell and CAF interactions through the integration of single-cell data from human tumors with human organoid coculture experiments. Analysis of a comprehensive atlas of PDAC single-cell RNA sequencing data indicated that CAF density is associated with increased inflammation and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) in epithelial cells.