The immune system can act as an extrinsic suppressor of tumors. Therefore, tumor progression depends in part on mechanisms that downmodulate intrinsic immune surveillance. Identifying these inhibitory pathways may provide promising targets to enhance antitumor immunity. Here, we show that Stat3 is constitutively activated in diverse tumor-infiltrating immune cells, and ablating Stat3 in hematopoietic cells triggers an intrinsic immune-surveillance system that inhibits tumor growth and metastasis. We observed a markedly enhanced function of dendritic cells, T cells, natural killer (NK) cells and neutrophils in tumor-bearing mice with Stat3(-/-) hematopoietic cells, and showed that tumor regression requires immune cells. Targeting Stat3 with a small-molecule drug induces T cell- and NK cell-dependent growth inhibition of established tumors otherwise resistant to direct killing by the inhibitor. Our findings show that Stat3 signaling restrains natural tumor immune surveillance and that inhibiting hematopoietic Stat3 in tumor-bearing hosts elicits multicomponent therapeutic antitumor immunity.

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Although tumor progression involves processes such as tissue invasion that can activate inflammatory responses, the immune system largely ignores or tolerates disseminated cancers. The mechanisms that block initiation of immune responses during cancer development are poorly understood. We report here that constitutive activation of Stat-3, a common oncogenic signaling pathway, suppresses tumor expression of proinflammatory mediators. Blocking Stat-3 in tumor cells increases expression of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines that activate innate immunity and dendritic cells, leading to tumor-specific T-cell responses. In addition, constitutive Stat-3 activity induces production of pleiotropic factors that inhibit dendritic cell functional maturation. Tumor-derived factors inhibit dendritic cell maturation through Stat-3 activation in progenitor cells. Thus, inhibition of antitumor immunity involves a cascade of Stat-3 activation propagating from tumor to dendritic cells. We propose that tumor Stat-3 activity can mediate immune evasion by blocking both the production and sensing of inflammatory signals by multiple components of the immune system.

Constitutive activation of signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) proteins has been detected in a wide variety of human primary tumor specimens and tumor cell lines including blood malignancies, head and neck cancer, and breast cancer. We have previously demonstrated a high frequency of Stat3 DNA-binding activity that is constitutively-induced by an unknown mechanism in human breast cancer cell lines possessing elevated EGF receptor (EGF-R) and c-Src kinase activities. Using tyrosine kinase selective inhibitors, we show here that Src and JAK family tyrosine kinases cooperate to mediate constitutive Stat3 activation in the absence of EGF stimulation in model human breast cancer cell lines. Inhibition of Src or JAKs results in dose-dependent suppression of Stat3 DNA-binding activity, which is accompanied by growth inhibition and induction of programmed cell death. In addition, transfection of a dominant-negative form of Stat3 leads to growth inhibition involving apoptosis of breast cancer cells. These results indicate that the biological eects of the Src and JAK tyrosine kinase inhibitors are at least partially mediated by blocking Stat3 signaling. While EGF-R kinase activity is not required for constitutive Stat3 activation in breast cancer cells, EGF stimulation further increases STAT DNA-binding activity, consistent with an important role for EGF-R in STAT signaling and malignant progression. Analysis of primary breast tumor specimens from patients with advanced disease revealed that the majority exhibit elevated STAT DNA-binding activity compared to adjacent non-tumor tissues. Our ®ndings, taken together, suggest that tyrosine kinases transduce signals through Stat3 protein that contribute to the growth and survival of human breast cancer cells in culture and potentially in vivo.

SUMMARY NF-κB (RelA) is constitutively active in many cancers where it up-regulates anti-apoptotic and other oncogenic genes. While proinflammatory stimulus-induced NF-κB activation involves IKK-dependent nuclear translocation, mechanisms for maintaining constitutive NF-κB activity in tumors have not been elucidated. We show here that maintenance of NF-κB activity in tumors requires Stat3 that is also frequently constitutively activated in cancer. Stat3 prolongs NF-κB nuclear retention through acetyltransferase p300-mediated RelA acetylation, thereby interfering with NF-κB nuclear export. Stat3-mediated maintenance of NF-κB activity occurs both in cancer cells and in tumor-associated hematopoietic cells. Both murine and human cancers display highly acetylated RelA, which is associated with Stat3 activity. This Stat3/NF-κB interaction is thus central to both the transformed and nontransformed elements in tumors.

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Loss of p53 function by mutation is common in cancer. However, most natural p53 mutations occur at a late stage in tumor development, and many clinically detectable cancers have reduced p53 expression but no p53 mutations. It remains to be fully determined what mechanisms disable p53 during malignant initiation and in cancers without mutations that directly affect p53. We show here that oncogenic signaling pathways inhibit the p53 gene transcription rate through a mechanism involving Stat3, which binds to the p53 promoter in vitro and in vivo. Site-specific mutation of a Stat3 DNA-binding site in the p53 promoter partially abrogates Stat3-induced inhibition. Stat3 activity also influences p53 response genes and affects UV-induced cell growth arrest in normal cells. Furthermore, blocking Stat3 in cancer cells up-regulates expression of p53, leading to p53-mediated tumor cell apoptosis. As a point of convergence for many oncogenic signaling pathways, Stat3 is constitutively activated at high frequency in a wide diversity of cancers and is a promising molecular target for cancer therapy. Thus, repression of p53 expression by Stat3 is likely to have an important role in development of tumors, and targeting Stat3 represents a novel therapeutic approach for p53 reactivation in many cancers lacking p53 mutations.The p53 protein is a potent inhibitor of cell growth, arresting cell cycle progression at several points and inducing apoptosis of cells undergoing uncontrolled growth (23,24). It has been well documented that the Ras and Myc oncogenes activate p53 by inhibiting degradation of p53 protein and that transformation by these oncogenes requires mutation of p53 itself or silencing of ARF expression in cultured cells and animal models (19,22). The critical role of p53 as an important tumor suppressor is further underscored by the fact that p53 is the most commonly altered gene in cancer. However, p53 mutation is often a late event in malignant progression (2), and many clinically detectable cancers without p53 mutations exhibit reduced p53 expression (33,36). In breast cancer, for example, 80% of the tumors do not have p53 mutations and a 5-to 10-fold reduction of the p53 mRNA level is found in tumor relative to normal breast cells and tissues (36). These observations indicate the importance of mechanisms to either block p53 activity or silence p53 expression during malignant initiation and progression. Indeed, it has been shown that the oncogenic potential of simian virus 40 (SV40) large T antigen depends on its ability to negatively regulate p53 activity, providing a mechanism by which oncoproteins inhibit p53 function in the absence of p53 mutations (3,16,34,38). Moreover, lack of HOX5A, a p53 transcription activator, has been shown to contribute to the inhibition of p53 expression in breast cancer (36).Several recent studies have reported that the c-Src tyrosine kinase opposes p53 activity during platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF)-induced mitogenesis (7,18). Because the requirement for c-Src in PDGF receptor (P...