Abstract 2048: Interferon-γ triggers an anti-tumorigenic chain reaction in the tumor vessels of colorectal carcinoma

Abstract

In colorectal carcinoma (CRC), a Th1-tumor microenvironment (TME) is associated with improved prognosis of the patients. The lead cytokine of the Th1-response is interferon (IFN)-γ. IFN-γ is predominantly regarded as an immunomodulatory cytokine. At present, its putative tumor blood vessel-directed anti-tumorigenic effects have not been investigated comprehensively. We demonstrate that the vascular effects of IFN-γ in CRC trigger a two-step anti-tumorigenic chain reaction. First, IFN-γ exerts direct angiostatic activity on endothelial cells. This was detected in vitro using primary endothelial cell cultures and in vivo in Th1-dominated inflammatory reactions of the colon using mouse models with specific deletion of the IFN-γ receptor-2 in endothelial cells and treatment with neutralizing anti-IFN-γ antibodies. Angiostatic IFN-γ effects could be validated in human CRC tissues using the cellular IFN-γ activation marker guanylate binding protein-1 which confirmed reduced angiogenic activity of vessels exposed to IFN-γ at that single cell level. IFN-γ-induced angiostasis was associated with a highly significantly improved cancer-related 5-year survival of the CRC patients (n=388). In a second step, angiostatic activity of IFN-γ resulted in the maintenance of mature tumor vessels in CRC tissues which expressed and secreted the anti-tumorigenic protein SPARCL1 in human CRC tissues (n = 42). This was significantly repressed in CRC tissues lacking a Th1 response. Functional analyses showed that SPARCL1 inhibited angiogenic activity of cultivated endothelial cells in different in vitro tests of angiogenesis (endothelial cell proliferation, migration, spreading, 3D-sprouting and capillary formation in matrigel), both after retrovirally triggered recombinant expression in endothelial cells or after adding the recombinantly purified human SPARCL1 protein. Interestingly, secreted SPARCL1 has also been shown to inhibit proliferation and migration of human CRC tumor cell lines. We could confirm the anti-tumor cell activity of soluble purified SPARCL1 using different tumor cell lines derived from mouse colon tumors (MC38) or mouse melanomas (B16F10), respectively. SPARCL1 inhibited proliferation and migration of both cell lines significantly. Using a mouse model system with a general knock out of the SPARCL1 gene, we obtained first evidence that the growth of metastatically spread MC38 cells in the lungs is repressed by SPARCL1 in vivo. Altogether our study demonstrates that the tumor vessel-directed effects of an IFN-γ-dominated tumor microenvironment in CRC trigger a two-step anti-tumorigenic chain reaction. This provides further insight into the potent anti-tumorigenic activity of a Th1-TME in CRC that may be of relevance for selection of patients' for anti-angiogenic therapy regiments. Moreover, our findings indicate novel pathways which may be prone to tumor immune evasion. Citation Format: Michael Stürzl, Victoria Langer, Daniela Regensburger, Clara Tenkerian, Annika Klingler, Maximilian Waldner, Christoph Becker, Valerie Meniel, Robert Grützmann, Carol-Immanuel Geppert, Nathalie Britzen-Laurent, Elisabeth Naschberger. Interferon-γ triggers an anti-tumorigenic chain reaction in the tumor vessels of colorectal carcinoma [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 2048.