A mechanism of cooling hot tumors: Lactate attenuates inflammation in dendritic cells

Hisashi Kanemaru; Yukari Mizukami; Akira Kaneko; Hidemi Tagawa; Toshihiro Kimura; Haruka Kuriyama; Soichiro Sawamura; Ikko Kajihara; Katsunari Makino; Azusa Miyashita; Jun Aoi; Takamitsu Makino; Shinichi Masuguchi; Satoshi Fukushima; Hironobu Ihn

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2021.103067

A mechanism of cooling hot tumors: Lactate attenuates inflammation in dendritic cells

iScience. 2021 Aug 30;24(9):103067. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2021.103067. eCollection 2021 Sep 24.

Authors

Affiliation

¹ Department of Dermatology and Plastic Surgery, Faculty of Life Sciences, Kumamoto University, 1-1-1 Honjo, Kumamoto, Japan.

Abstract

Turning non-inflamed (cold) tumors into inflamed (hot) tumors is important for maximizing the effect of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) against malignancies. We showed that lactate, a product of the Warburg effect, inhibited the efficacy of ICIs and suppressed IL-12 p40 expression in dendritic cells (DCs) through reducing NF-κB p65, p50, and c-Rel DNA-binding activity to the IL-12 p40 promoter. Additionally, lactate promoted the expression of early growth response protein 1 (EGR1), whose expression was increased in human invasive melanoma compared with non-invasive melanoma. We also found that EGR1 interacts with serum response factor (SRF) and represses the expression of CD80 in DCs. These findings suggest that lactate and its induced EGR1 are key factors that turn hot tumors into cold tumors and may represent targets in cancer treatment with ICIs.

Keywords: cancer; immune response; immunology.