Background
Lung cancer is the major cause of cancer-related mortality in patients worldwide [
1] in which non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for 85%. Last few decades immunotherapy has become an important part in oncology treatment. Immunotherapy has a major advantage to specifically target tumor cell relative to normal cell, thereby minimizing nonspecific toxicities [
2]. Cancer vaccines as the best choice of immunotherapy are available for clinical trials in recent years, ranging from single peptide and recombinant viral vector vaccinations to whole cell therapies [
3‐
6]. However, evidence from preclinical models suggests that the immune system often fails to reject spontaneously arising tumors for the absence of sufficiently immunogenic tumor specific antigens (TSA) [
7]. In this case, the whole tumor cell represents the best source of immunizing antigens without knowledge of any specific antigen targets. Unfortunately, studies aimed at dissecting antitumor immune responses have confirmed that most tumors are not naturally immunogenic due to immune-editing [
8], a process that allows tumor to evolve during continuous interactions with the host immune system and eventually escape from immune surveillance. Therefore, improving the immunogenic of tumor cell became very important. In fact, researchers have found that genetically modified tumor cell with secreted immune activating cytokines has the ability to enhance the immunogenic and induce systemic antitumor immune responses [
9].
IL-18, IFN-γ-inducing factor, is secreted mainly by activated macrophages and DCs [
10]. It could induce the proliferation and enhance the cytotoxicity of both T and NK cells [
11]. IL-18 has shown to have anti-tumor effects in several murine tumor models when transferred into tumor cells, alone [
12‐
14] or in combination with IL-12 [
15] or IL-23 [
16]. Similar with IL-12, IL-18 also has the ability to inhibit tumor angiogenesis and growth [
17,
18]. Moreover, combination of IL-12 and IL-18 can play an important role in progression and metastasis of gastric cancer [
19].
GM-CSF is a potent cytokine activator of APCs and plays an important part in breaking tolerance and the development of antitumor immune responses [
20]. Therefore, GM-CSF was often evaluated as cancer vaccine adjutants. GM-CSF genetically modified the irradiated whole tumor cells (GVAX) is very effective when used to trigger immune responses. In mouse models, prophylactic vaccines using GM-CSF modified tumor cells can engender protective immunity to delay tumor growth [
21]. Similarly, in cancer patients, GM-CSF secreting allogeneic tumor vaccines have also been developed for clinical testing and evaluated in pancreatic cancer, breast cancer, and hormone-resistant prostate cancer [
22‐
24]. More encouragingly, the FDA has approved a therapeutic prostate cancer vaccine which modified by fusion protein that combines recombinant prostate acid phosphatase (PAP) with recombinant GM-CSF called Sipuleucel-T in April 2010.
However, no previous studies, to our knowledge, have examined the strategy that using combination of IL-18 and GM-CSF gene to modify tumor cell vaccine in a single tumor model. In the present study, we utilized the mouse IL-18 combined with GM-CSF to modify the poorly immunogenic Lewis lung cancer LL/2 [
25]. It is critical for our study to establish the generality of an immunostimulatory effect of a tumor vaccine product modified with combined immune stimulating factors. Compared with LL/2 blank or LL/2 irradiated vaccine group, the results showed that vaccine co-expressing IL-18 and GM-CSF group markedly delayed tumor growth and prolonged the overall survival either in prophylactic or adoptive experiments
in vivo. We also found that this vaccine induced greater infiltration of spleen cells and higher production of IFN-γ
in vitro. The antitumor response is also tumor specificity by
51Cr CTL assay
in vitro and mainly dependenton CD4
+, CD8
+ T lymphocyte by depletion
in vivo. The findings from our study suggest that the combination of GM-CSF and IL-18 gene should be very promising for improving the immunogenic of tumor vaccine in a synergetic manner.
Methods
Ethics
Experimental research that is reported in the manuscript have been performed with the approval of the Animal Care and Welfare Committee of CIH-CAM S-PUMC (approval date: 20 June 2009; approval number: 20120002). All the experimental research on animals followed the National Institutes of Health Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (publication no. 85–23, revised 1985).
Mice
Female 5-week-old C57BL/6 mice (the laboratory Animal Center of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China) were kept under specific pathogen-free conditions in State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, Sichuan University.
Cell culture and transfection
Mouse Lewis lung cancer cell line LL/2 (ATCC), hybridoma cell lines CD4 (PK136, ATCC), CD8 (Clone2.43, ATCC) were cultured in DMEM medium with 10% FBS (Gibco-BRL, Gaithersburg, MD. USA), NK (GK1.5, ATCC) in IMEM medium with 20% FBS (Gibco-BRL, Gaithersburg, MD. USA). All mediums were supplemented with 20 mM L-glutamine, 100 U/ml of penicillin and 100 μg/ml of streptomycin. All tumor cells were maintained at 37°C in a humidified atmosphere containing 5% CO2. Cell transfection was carried out using Cationic liposome DOTAP-Chol according to the manufacturer’s standard procedure [
26].
Generation of pIRES-double MCS eukaryotic expression vector
Eukaryotic expression vector pIRES-double MCS was reformed with pIRES empty plasmid and pEGFP-N1 plasmid. First, multiple cloning sites (MCS) sequence from pIRES empty plasmid was synthetized into pUC57 empty vector (GenScript Co, Ltd. Nanjing, China), and NheI, NotI restriction enzyme cutting sites were introduced into MCS sequence, we then cut pUC57 vector and pEGFP-N1 plasmid with NheI, NotI restriction Enzymes, respectively, restriction fragments were recycled using Gel Extraction Kit and connected with T4 ligase. The reconstructive vector was named pIRES-DMCS, abbreviated for MCS. All Endotoxin-free plasmids were prepared using the Qiagen Endo-free Giga kit (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany).
Construction of co-expressing IL-18 and GM-CSF plasmid
To generate an eukaryotic co-expression IL-18 and GM-CSF vector, an pIRES-DMCS vector with double cloning sites has been reformed in our lab (State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, Chengdu, Sichuan, China). It is abbreviated as MCS. Mouse GM-CSF gene (GenBank:X03019.1) was first cloned and inserted into MCS between the restriction sites SacI and SacII, abbreviated as MCS-mGM-CSF. To clone mIL-18 into MCS-mGM-CSF, the newly constructed MCS-mGM-CSF vector was then linearized with EcoRI and XbaI digestion. Mouse IL-18 (GenBank:NM_008360.1) was inserted into the linearized vector and abbreviated as MCS-mGM-CSF + IL-18. Meanwhile, we also inserted mIL-18 into MCS by the restriction sites EcoRI and XbaIas control group, abbreviated as MCS-mIL-18. Plasmids were extracted using Endo Free Plasmid Giga kits (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany) from DH5α Escherichia coli transformants and stored at −20°C before use. The concentration was determined by measuring A260/A280 ratio using UV spectrophotometry.
Vaccine preparation
LL/2 tumor cells were respectively transfected with MCS, MCS-mGM-CSF, MCS-mIL-18 and MCS-mGM-CSF + IL-18 plasmids by Cationic liposome (DOTAP-Chol: DNA = 6:1). For 48 hours, the tumor cells were extensively digested and washed three times, then suspended in 1 ml serum free DMEM medium. The cell resuspension in each group was irradiated with a sublethal dose X-ray (100 Gy) [
27] by irradiator (RS-2000 biological irradiator, Rad Source Technologies, Inc. Suwanee, GA). Irradiated tumor cells were used for further study, including morphologic observation, proliferation assay, detection of cytokine levels and animal experiments.
Cell proliferation assays
The 3-(4, 5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay was used to determine the proliferation rate of the cells as described previously [
28]. After irradiation, cells were immediately plated in 96-well plated. At time points of 0, 24, 48 and 72 h, the absorbance was recorded using a 96-well spectrophotometer at wavelength of 570 nm. For analysis of cell viability, values from wells with no cells were subtracted for background correction and the data determined as a percent of the untreated control samples. Each assay was performed in three replicates. Normal LL/2 tumor cell was used as control group.
Cytokine analysis
In vitro the supernatants of irradiated groups transfected with plasmids as described previously were collected on 48 h, and the concentration of IL-18, GM-CSF were analyzed using ELISA kits (eBioscience Inc, San Diego, CA, USA). Meanwhile the expression of IL-18, GM-CSF in the supernatants of non-irradiated groups were also detected. For in vivo cytokine analysis, mice were immunized with various tumor cell vaccines subcutaneously. Serum from each group including non-immunized group was collected through caudal vein on 2 day, 4 day, 6 day and 8 day after the third immunization respectively. IL-18, GM-CSF and Th1/Th2 cytokines such as INF-γ, TNF-α, TGF-β, IL-10 were analyzed by ELISA kits (eBioscience Inc, San Diego, CA, USA).
Prophylactic immunotherapy in vivo
To assess the efficacy of LL/2 tumor cell vaccines
in vivo, C57BL/6 mice (5–6 weeks) were divided into different vaccine groups and immunized subcutaneously with irradiated vaccines (1 × 10
6 cells per mouse) on the left at 1, 3, 4 week respectively [
29,
30]. Non-immunized group as control was injected with serum free medium alone. All mice were then subcutaneously challenged with 1 × 10
6 LL/2 cells on the right after 7 days at the third immunization. About one week, tumor volume could be measured every three days and each mouse was taken for measurements. We measured for six times in Prophylactic immunotherapy. Tumor volume was calculated using the formula volume = length × width
2/2. The survival curve could also be surveyed.
Adoptive immunotherapy in vivo
As the method described in prophylactic immunotherapy, splenic lymphocytes of all groups were isolated by lymphocyte separation fluid (Tianjin Chuanye biochemical products company, Tianjin, China) according to the manufacturer’s standard procedure after the third immunization. Splenic lymphocytes were then counted and injected i.v (1 × 107 cells per mouse) into mice which were inoculated LL/2 tumor cells (1 × 106 cells per mouse) subcutaneously 3 days ago. Adoptive immunotherapy of splenic lymphocytes was repeated every 2 days for 5 times. About one week, tumors could be measured every 3 days and calculated using the formula volume = length × width2/2. We measured for six times in adoptive immunotherapy. The survival curve could also be surveyed.
51Cr cytotoxic assay in vitro
The cytolytic activity of tumor-specific CTL was evaluated by 51Cr-releaseassay. As described in prophylactic immunotherapy, spleen cells from the immunized mice and control group (non-immunized mice) were prepared as effector cells, LL/2 tumor cells were used as target cells. Splenocytes as effector cells were then co-cultured with 51Cr-labeled LL/2 cells as target cells at 80:1, 40:1, 20:1, 10:1 E:T ratios for 4 h under 37°C, 5% CO2. Thereafter, the supernatant was obtained and 51Cr release was assessed. The percentage of specific lysis was calculated by the following formula: (c.p.m.experiment release-c.p.m.spontaneous release)/(c.p.m.maximum release-c.p.m. spontaneous release) × 100. Spontaneous release was determined by incubation of the labeled target cells without effector cells. For maximum release, labeled target cells were treated with detergent.
Depletion of immune cell subsets in vivo
Immune cell subsets could be depleted as described previously [
31,
32]. As described in prophylactic immunotherapy, mice immunized were injected intraperitoneally with 500 μg anti-CD4 (GK1.5), anti-CD8 (clone2.43), anti-NK (PK136) monoclonal antibody (mAb) produced in hybridoma cell and isotype control rat IgG at 1 day before every immunization and three days later for 6 times, respectively. Mice were then challenged with LL/2 tumor cell after 7 days at the last depletion. Tumor growth in different subsets was estimated. The depletion of CD4, CD8 T lymphocytes and NK cells was consistently greater than 98% determined by flow cytometry [
31].
Flow cytometry and antibodies
The following anti-mouse monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) were used for flow cytometry: anti-CD4-PE, anti-CD8-PE, anti-IFN-γ-FITC (BD Bioscience, USA). Flow cytometry was performed using a flow cytometer (Epics X L; Beckman Coulter Inc., Brea, CA, USA) equipped with Expo32 software (Beckman Coulter) under the standard procedure.
T lymphocyte infiltration in tumor tissue
After the last measurement of tumor volume in prophylactic immunotherapy, tumors were resected and frozen sections were used for analysis of T lymphocyte infiltrationby immunofluorescence. The following anti-mouse primary antibodies (mAbs) were used rat anti-mouse CD8, rat anti-mouse CD4, rat anti-mouse NK and the second antibodies were goat anti-rat IgG-TR and goat anti-rat IgG-FITC (Abcam, USA), respectively.
Immunohistochemistry
Thirty days after the last measurement of tumor volume in prophylactic immunotherapy, mice were sacrificed and paraffin-embedded tumor tissue sections were used for the examination of PCNA, activated-caspase-3 (Abcam, Cambridge, UK) and tunnel (Promega, Madison, WI). Sections were scored under light microscopy (X200) by three independent pathologists, who analyzed three different fields per section.
Statistical analysis
Statistical significance of difference between the two groups was determined by the Student paired-test. The Kaplan-Meier plot for survival was assessed for significance using the log-rank test (SPSS software; version 16.0; SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL, USA). P < 0.05 was considered significant.
Discussion
Numerous lines of evidence indicate that most tumors can escape immune detection or elimination [
33]. This phenomenon is mainly caused by activation of immunosuppressive cells as well as down-regulation of effective antigens and MHC expression which could dampen the vigor of immune responses or induce apoptosis of immune effector cells [
34]. Some of these reasons can be reversed by cytokines.
Recently, studies in mouse tumor models and in patients have shown the importance of cytokine combinations in the development of optimal immune responses. For example, a clear synergy between interleukin-2 (IL-2) and IL-12 was first described in a poorly immunogenic tumor (MCA205) after i.t. administration using adenoviral vectors [
35]. The combination of IL-12 and IL-18 used to modify autologous tumor cell vaccine by means of the EBV/Lipoplex or oncolytic adenovirus could synergistically induce significant antitumor effects [
15,
29]. These results showed a prospect of combining two potentially synergistic cytokines to modify tumor cell vaccine, thereby improving the immunogenicity and tumor-specific immunity.
In our current study, we choose the IL-18 and GM-CSF to genetically modify the Lewis lung cancer cell. IL-18 induces the proliferation and enhances the cytotoxicity of both T and NK cells [
11]. GM-CSF may play an important role in the maturation or function of antigen presenting cells. In multiple murine models, Vaccination with irradiated tumor cells engineered to secrete GM-CSF involves enhanced tumor antigen presentation by recruited dendritic cells (DCs) and macrophages [
36]. After irradiation with a sublethal dose X-ray (100 Gy), we have succeeded in generating an effective LL/2 tumor cell vaccine co-expressing mouse IL-18 and GM-CSF. The vaccine has the ability to secreting cytokines, but has no tumorigenicity (Figure
1B-C). In animal study, we found the vaccine could significantly inhibit the tumor growth and prolong the survival both in prophylactic immunotherapy (Figure
2A-D) and in adoptive immunotherapy (Figure
3A-C). The antitumor immunity is specific response proved in adoptive immunotherapy. Due to the pleiotropy of vaccine, the possible mechanism is that localized expression of GM-CSF by tumor cell vaccine co-expression GM-CSF and IL-18 might specifically recruit dendritic cells (DCs) or macrophages and enhance whole tumor-antigen presentation, IL-18 secreted by vaccine could further promote the proliferation and cytotoxicity of T or NK cells which received tumor antigens presented by activated host antigen presenting cells.
To show the mechanism underlying the enhanced antitumor effect mediated by vaccine co-expression IL-18 and GM-CSF, we next detected the expression of Th1 or Th2 cytokine in serum. Our data showed that Th1 cytokines, including IL-18, GM-CSF and INF-γ, were markedly elevated in vaccine co-expression IL-18 and GM-CSF-treated mice (Figure
4A-C). The results indicated that vaccine co-expression IL-18 and GM-CSF mainly promoted the activation of Th1 cells which could secrete pro-infammatory cytokine. Interestingly, we found that tumor necrosis factor (TNF-α) showed higher expression level at 6 day in control groups (Figure
4E). The inflammatory cytokine TNF-α could bind to its receptors and induce a signaling cascade that induces transcriptional regulation of mediators which are key to cell survival, invasion, angiogenesis, and impairment of immune surveillance in tumor biology [
37,
38]. The reason why TNF-α was elevated in control group may be that its tumor-promoting role which has been recently demonstrated in mouse cancer models [
39,
40]. In these models and in human cancers, TNF-α is produced by malignant or host cells within the tumor microenvironment. The mechanisms of action of TNF-α in the tumor microenvironment could be via induction of a pro-angiogenic phenotype in recruited monocytes [
41], impairment of immune surveillance through T cell suppression [
42]. Moreover, we also found immunosuppressive factor IL-10 was elevated and reached a peak on the day 6 in combined vaccine group (Figure
4F). Previous study has suggested that IL-10 contributes to an immune suppressive tumor microenvironment. It can inhibit the expression of MHC molecules and co-stimulatory molecules at several levels [
43]. It has also been demonstrated that IL-10 can impair secondary CD8
+T cell responses [
44], whereas viral and tumor clearance can be enhanced in the absence of IL-10 [
45,
46]. Recent study proved that IL-10 is required for efficient immune surveillance against the incidence and progression of endogenously arising skin tumors. It induces the expression of MHCI and the production of cytotoxic enzymes, IFN-γ in tumor-infiltrating CD8
+T cells in tumors [
47]. These studies could well explain the reason why expression of IL-10 was induced in combined vaccine group. TGF-β was no obvious difference in all groups (Figure
4D). In agreement with previous findings, We also found the proportion of CD4
+INF-γ
+ T, CD8
+ INF-γ
+ T in spleen was also higher in vaccine co-expression IL-18 and GM-CSF treated than other groups (Figure
5A).
Tumor microenvironment has been shown to establish immune-suppressive cytokine networks that favor the suppression of an antitumor immune response and eventually generate tumor proliferation, angiogenesis and metastasis. Therefore, it is critical for activated tumor-specific T effector cell and NK cell to infiltrate and generate antitumor immunity effectively within the tumor microenvironment. Immunohistochemical results showed immense necrotic regions as well as infiltration of CD4
+T and CD8
+T cells into the tumor tissues of vaccine co-expression IL-18 and GM-CSF treated mice compared with other groups, however, infiltration of NK was not obvious in all groups (Figure
5B). To our knowledge for the first time, low dosing of IL-18 could mediate immunosuppression on the NK cell arm of immunity. Importantly, IL-18 could drive the expression of PD-1 on mature NK cells, whereas PD-1 receptors were often highly expressed on tumors [
48]. It may induce apoptosis and no infiltration of NK cells. Certainly, further studies will be needed to clarify this question. To further prove specificity of antitumor immunity and analyze tumor-specific immune cells, we showed that mice immunized with vaccine co-expression IL-18 and GM-CSF had enhanced CTL activity at 80:1 compared with control group (Figure
7A). Depletion of CD4 or CD8 T lymphocytes were not protected from tumor challenge, in contrast, depletion of NK still possessed strong anti-tumor activity compared with control group (Figure
7B-F). These results further support the question of infiltration of immune cells in tumor and were accordance with previous results.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Authors’ contributions
HW T, DC Y, YQ W and HX D conceived and designed the experiments and drafted the manuscript. HW T, GS, GY Y, JF Z, YM L, TD and JZ W carried out the animal experiments studied the mechanism. SZ, YY and FX analyzed the data. LC, XM Z, LD and XLC carried out the molecular genetic studies and participated in the immunoassays. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
This article has been retracted. Please see the retraction notice for more detail: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-023-11123-7"