Macrophages play critical roles in both innate and adaptive immunity and are known for their high plasticity in response to various external signals. Macrophages are involved in regulating systematic iron homeostasis and they sequester iron by phagocytotic activity, which triggers M1 macrophage polarization and typically exerts antitumor effects. We previously developed a novel cryo-thermal therapy that can induce the mass release of tumor antigens and damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs), promoting M1 macrophage polarization. However, that study did not examine whether iron released after cryo-thermal therapy induced M1 macrophage polarization; this question still needed to be addressed. We hypothesized that cryo-thermal therapy would cause the release of a large quantity of iron to augment M1 macrophage polarization due to the disruption of tumor cells and blood vessels, which would further enhance antitumor immunity. In this study, we investigated iron released in primary tumors, the level of iron in splenic macrophages after cryo-thermal therapy and the effect of iron on macrophage polarization and CD4+ T cell differentiation in metastatic 4T1 murine mammary carcinoma. We found that a large amount of iron was released after cryo-thermal therapy and could be taken up by splenic macrophages, which further promoted M1 macrophage polarization by inhibiting ERK phosphorylation. Moreover, iron promoted DC maturation, which was possibly mediated by iron-induced M1 macrophages. In addition, iron-induced M1 macrophages and mature DCs promoted the differentiation of CD4+ T cells into the CD4 cytolytic T lymphocytes (CTL) subset and inhibited differentiation into Th2 and Th17 cells. This study explains the role of iron in cryo-thermal therapy-induced antitumor immunity from a new perspective.
Keywords: CD4 CTL; CD4+ T cell differentiation; M1 macrophages; cryo-thermal therapy; iron.