The stimulatory activity of plasma in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer requires TLR-stimulating nucleic acid immunoglobulin complexes and discriminates responsiveness to chemotherapy.

Background: Therapeutic options for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are often restricted to systemic chemotherapy. However, the molecular and cellular processes during chemotherapy of advanced NSCLC patients still remain unclear. Here we investigated the stimulatory activity of plasma in advanced NSCLC patients and its correlation with chemotherapy.

Methods: Whole blood samples from advanced NSCLC patients were collected before the first, second, and third cycle of chemotherapy. Plasma was isolated following centrifugation of whole blood. PBMCs were isolated from whole-blood specimens by Ficoll-Hypaque density gradient centrifugation. Immune complexes (ICs) were isolated from NSCLC plasma using the IgG Purification Kit. qRT-PCR was used to detect a broad array of cytokines and chemokines.

Results: The plasma in advanced NSCLC patients was endowed with stimulatory activity and capable of inducing proinflammatory cytokines. Both nucleic acids and immunoglobulin components were required for the stimulatory activity of NSCLC plasma. In consistent, TLR8 and TLR9 conferred the stimulatory activity of plasma in NSCLC patients. Of note, we revealed the decreased stimulatory activity of plasma in patients who responded to chemotherapy.

Conclusions: Our findings demonstrated that the plasma of advanced NSCLC patients required TLR-stimulating nucleic acid immunoglobulin complexes and could discriminate the responsiveness to chemotherapy, which might provide a novel mechanism by which the proinflammatory immune response was induced and a potential new biomarker for evaluating responsiveness to chemotherapy in NSCLC patients.