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Commensal bacteria stimulate antitumor responses via T cell cross-reactivity
Catherine A. Bessell, … , Timothy A. Chan, Jonathan P. Schneck
Catherine A. Bessell, … , Timothy A. Chan, Jonathan P. Schneck
Published April 23, 2020
Citation Information: JCI Insight. 2020;5(8):e135597. https://doi.org/10.1172/jci.insight.135597.
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Research Article Immunology Oncology

Commensal bacteria stimulate antitumor responses via T cell cross-reactivity

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Abstract

Recent studies show gut microbiota modulate antitumor immune responses; one proposed mechanism is cross-reactivity between antigens expressed in commensal bacteria and neoepitopes. We found that T cells targeting an epitope called SVYRYYGL (SVY), expressed in the commensal bacterium Bifidobacterium breve (B. breve), cross-react with a model neoantigen, SIYRYYGL (SIY). Mice lacking B. breve had decreased SVY-reactive T cells compared with B. breve–colonized mice, and the T cell response was transferable by SVY immunization or by cohousing mice without Bifidobacterium with ones colonized with Bifidobacterium. Tumors expressing the model SIY neoantigen also grew faster in mice lacking B. breve compared with Bifidobacterium-colonized animals. B. breve colonization also shaped the SVY-reactive TCR repertoire. Finally, SVY-specific T cells recognized SIY-expressing melanomas in vivo and led to decreased tumor growth and extended survival. Our work demonstrates that commensal bacteria can stimulate antitumor immune responses via cross-reactivity and how bacterial antigens affect the T cell landscape.

Authors

Catherine A. Bessell, Ariel Isser, Jonathan J. Havel, Sangyun Lee, David R. Bell, John W. Hickey, Worarat Chaisawangwong, Joan Glick Bieler, Raghvendra Srivastava, Fengshen Kuo, Tanaya Purohit, Ruhong Zhou, Timothy A. Chan, Jonathan P. Schneck

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Figure 6

B. breve colonization shapes the KbSVY TCR repertoire.

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B. breve colonization shapes the KbSVY TCR repertoire.
 (A) Schematic s...
(A) Schematic setup of TCR repertoire analysis. CD8+ T cells from Jackson and Taconic mice were stimulated with KbSIY or KbSIY aAPCs. On day 7, cells from each stimulation were stained and sorted by antigen reactivity (KbSIY or KbSVY) and processed for TCR β chain deep sequencing. (B) Exact TCR clone overlap between all repertoires. Numbers indicate the number of unique overlapping clones between 2 TCR repertoires, and the color scale indicates the percentage contribution of the overlapping sequences to the total combined repertoire for each pair. (C) TCR clone overlap between all repertoires based on TCR homology using ImmunoMap algorithm. Numbers indicate the number of homologous clusters shared between 2 TCR repertoires, and the color scale indicates the percentage contribution of shared clusters to the total combined repertoire for each pair. (D) Overlap between Jackson and Taconic mice of T cell repertoires stimulated by SIY or SVY based on the frequency of homologous TCR clones and overlap between SIY and SVY stimulations for Jackson or Taconic mice groups. Data included the cognate and cross-reactive sorted populations, as indicated by the black boxes in C. P value = 0.0016 by 2-tailed t test. N = 4. Data represent mean ± SEM. (E) PCA of homology-based TCR clusters. TCR repertoires were analyzed by CDR3 sequence homology and separated into dominant motifs. (F) TCR β chain deep sequencing was performed on Jackson mouse splenocytes incubated with or without heat-killed Bifidobacterium. TCR clones with a Hamming distance of 1 were defined as homologous to clones from aAPC-expanded KbSIY- or KbSVY-specific T cells. Productive frequency of these homologous clones from Bifidobacterium-stimulated and unstimulated cells is shown. P value = 0.0001 by 2-tailed t test.

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