Decitabine Treatment of Glioma-Initiating Cells Enhances Immune Recognition and Killing

PLoS One. 2016 Aug 31;11(8):e0162105. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0162105. eCollection 2016.

Abstract

Malignant gliomas are aggressive brain tumours with very poor prognosis. The majority of glioma cells are differentiated (glioma-differentiated cells: GDCs), whereas the smaller population (glioma-initiating cells, GICs) is undifferentiated and resistant to conventional therapies. Therefore, to better target this pool of heterogeneous cells, a combination of diverse therapeutic approaches is envisaged. Here we investigated whether the immunosensitising properties of the hypomethylating agent decitabine can be extended to GICs. Using the murine GL261 cell line, we demonstrate that decitabine augments the expression of the death receptor FAS both on GDCs and GICs. Interestingly, it had a higher impact on GICs and correlated with an enhanced sensitivity to FASL-mediated cell death. Moreover, the expression of other critical molecules involved in cognate recognition by cytotoxic T lymphocytes, MHCI and ICAM-1, was upregulated by decitabine treatment. Consequently, T-cell mediated killing of both GDCs and GICs was enhanced, as was T cell proliferation after reactivation. Overall, although GICs are described to resist classical therapies, our study shows that hypomethylating agents have the potential to enhance glioma cell recognition and subsequent destruction by immune cells, regardless of their differentiation status. These results support the development of combinatorial treatment modalities including epigenetic modulation together with immunotherapy in order to treat heterogenous malignancies such as glioblastoma.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Azacitidine / administration & dosage
  • Azacitidine / analogs & derivatives*
  • Azacitidine / pharmacology
  • Brain Neoplasms / drug therapy*
  • Brain Neoplasms / genetics
  • Brain Neoplasms / immunology
  • Cell Line, Tumor
  • Cell Proliferation / drug effects
  • Cell Survival / drug effects
  • Decitabine
  • Fas Ligand Protein / pharmacology
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic / drug effects
  • Genes, MHC Class I / drug effects
  • Glioma / drug therapy*
  • Glioma / genetics
  • Glioma / immunology
  • Humans
  • Intercellular Adhesion Molecule-1 / metabolism
  • Mice
  • Neoplastic Stem Cells / drug effects*
  • Neoplastic Stem Cells / immunology
  • T-Lymphocytes, Cytotoxic / drug effects
  • T-Lymphocytes, Cytotoxic / metabolism
  • Up-Regulation
  • Xenograft Model Antitumor Assays
  • fas Receptor / genetics*
  • fas Receptor / metabolism

Substances

  • Fas Ligand Protein
  • Fas protein, mouse
  • fas Receptor
  • Intercellular Adhesion Molecule-1
  • Decitabine
  • Azacitidine

Grants and funding

This investigation was supported by a grant from the Geneva Cancer League (http://www.lgc.ch/) to PRW and by the Ernst and Lucie Schmidheiny Foundation (http://www.fondation-schmidheiny.ch/) to CR. SJ and PT are employees of Astex Pharmaceuticals. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.