Spatially mapping the immune landscape of melanoma using imaging mass cytometry

D Moldoveanu, LA Ramsay, M Lajoie… - Science …, 2022 - science.org
D Moldoveanu, LA Ramsay, M Lajoie, L Anderson-Trocme, M Lingrand, D Berry, LJM Perus…
Science immunology, 2022science.org
Melanoma is an immunogenic cancer with a high response rate to immune checkpoint
inhibitors (ICIs). It harbors a high mutation burden compared with other cancers and, as a
result, has abundant tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) within its microenvironment.
However, understanding the complex interplay between the stroma, tumor cells, and distinct
TIL subsets remains a substantial challenge in immune oncology. To properly study this
interplay, quantifying spatial relationships of multiple cell types within the tumor …
Melanoma is an immunogenic cancer with a high response rate to immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). It harbors a high mutation burden compared with other cancers and, as a result, has abundant tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) within its microenvironment. However, understanding the complex interplay between the stroma, tumor cells, and distinct TIL subsets remains a substantial challenge in immune oncology. To properly study this interplay, quantifying spatial relationships of multiple cell types within the tumor microenvironment is crucial. To address this, we used cytometry time-of-flight (CyTOF) imaging mass cytometry (IMC) to simultaneously quantify the expression of 35 protein markers, characterizing the microenvironment of 5 benign nevi and 67 melanomas. We profiled more than 220,000 individual cells to identify melanoma, lymphocyte subsets, macrophage/monocyte, and stromal cell populations, allowing for in-depth spatial quantification of the melanoma microenvironment. We found that within pretreatment melanomas, the abundance of proliferating antigen-experienced cytotoxic T cells (CD8+CD45RO+Ki67+) and the proximity of antigen-experienced cytotoxic T cells to melanoma cells were associated with positive response to ICIs. Our study highlights the potential of multiplexed single-cell technology to quantify spatial cell-cell interactions within the tumor microenvironment to understand immune therapy responses.
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