Blockade of the checkpoint receptor TIGIT prevents NK cell exhaustion and elicits potent anti-tumor immunity

Q Zhang, J Bi, X Zheng, Y Chen, H Wang, W Wu… - Nature …, 2018 - nature.com
Q Zhang, J Bi, X Zheng, Y Chen, H Wang, W Wu, Z Wang, Q Wu, H Peng, H Wei, R Sun…
Nature immunology, 2018nature.com
Checkpoint blockade enhances effector T cell function and has elicited long-term remission
in a subset of patients with a broad spectrum of cancers. TIGIT is a checkpoint receptor
thought to be involved in mediating T cell exhaustion in tumors; however, the relevance of
TIGIT to the dysfunction of natural killer (NK) cells remains poorly understood. Here we
found that TIGIT, but not the other checkpoint molecules CTLA-4 and PD-1, was associated
with NK cell exhaustion in tumor-bearing mice and patients with colon cancer. Blockade of …
Abstract
Checkpoint blockade enhances effector T cell function and has elicited long-term remission in a subset of patients with a broad spectrum of cancers. TIGIT is a checkpoint receptor thought to be involved in mediating T cell exhaustion in tumors; however, the relevance of TIGIT to the dysfunction of natural killer (NK) cells remains poorly understood. Here we found that TIGIT, but not the other checkpoint molecules CTLA-4 and PD-1, was associated with NK cell exhaustion in tumor-bearing mice and patients with colon cancer. Blockade of TIGIT prevented NK cell exhaustion and promoted NK cell–dependent tumor immunity in several tumor-bearing mouse models. Furthermore, blockade of TIGIT resulted in potent tumor-specific T cell immunity in an NK cell–dependent manner, enhanced therapy with antibody to the PD-1 ligand PD-L1 and sustained memory immunity in tumor re-challenge models. This work demonstrates that TIGIT constitutes a previously unappreciated checkpoint in NK cells and that targeting TIGIT alone or in combination with other checkpoint receptors is a promising anti-cancer therapeutic strategy.
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