Abstract

A chronic viral or tumor microenvironment can push T cells to exhaustion by promoting coinhibitory ligand expression. However, how host factors control coinhibitory ligand expression and whether viral infection breaks this control during tumor progress is unknown. Here we show a close negative correlation between SALL4 or PD-L1 and miR-200c in tumors from 98 patients with HBV-related hepatocellular carcinoma. SALL4 or PD-L1 expression correlates negatively with miR-200c expression, and patients with lower levels of SALL4 or PD-L1 and higher miR-200c survive longer. Moreover, over-expression of miR-200c antagonizes HBV-mediated PD-L1 expression by targeting 3ʹ-UTR of CD274 (encoding PD-L1) directly, and reverses antiviral CD8+ T cell exhaustion. MiR-200c transcription is inhibited by oncofetal protein SALL4, which is re-expressed through HBV-induced STAT3 activation in adulthood. We propose that an HBV-pSTAT3-SALL4-miR-200c axis regulates PD-L1. Therapeutic strategies to influence this axis might reverse virus-induced immune exhaustion.

Details

Title
Oncofetal gene SALL4 reactivation by hepatitis B virus counteracts miR-200c in PD-L1-induced T cell exhaustion
Author
Sun, Cheng 1 ; Lan, Peixiang 2 ; Han, Qiuju 2 ; Huang, Mei 3 ; Zhang, Zhihong 4 ; Xu, Geliang 3 ; Song, Jiaxi 5 ; Wang, Jinyu 5 ; Wei, Haiming 5 ; Zhang, Jian 2 ; Sun, Rui 5 ; Zhang, Cai 2 ; Tian, Zhigang 1 

 The CAS Key Laboratory of Innate Immunity and Chronic Disease and Institute of Immunology, School of Life Science and Medical Center, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China; Collaborative Innovation Center for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, State Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases, First Affiliated Hospital, College of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China 
 Institute of Immunopharmacology and Immunotherapy, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong, China 
 Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Hepatopancreatobiliary Surgery, Anhui Provincial Hospital Affiliated with Anhui Medical University, Hefei, Anhui, China 
 Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China 
 The CAS Key Laboratory of Innate Immunity and Chronic Disease and Institute of Immunology, School of Life Science and Medical Center, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China 
Pages
1-17
Publication year
2018
Publication date
Mar 2018
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20411723
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2019432702
Copyright
© 2018. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.