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* Department of Microbiology and Immunology,
Department of Otolaryngology, and
Department of Medicine, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC 29403; and
Research Service (151), Ralph H. Johnson Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Charleston, SC 2940
Tumor-induced immune suppression involves the accumulation of immune-suppressive infiltrates in the microenvironment. This study demonstrates increased numbers of CD4+CD25+FoxP3+ regulatory T cells (Tregs) in the lungs of C57BL/6 mice bearing a metastatic Lewis lung carcinoma (LLC) variant. These Tregs suppressed the proliferation of endogenous CD4+CD25– cells and expressed higher levels of the chemokine receptor CCR4 than other types of T cells. LLC-bearing lungs secreted elevated levels of the CCR4-associated chemokine CCL22 compared with normal lungs. However, CCL22 was not secreted by LLC or normal epithelial controls, suggesting that CCL22 is secreted by a nonepithelial component of the microenvironment. Migration assays revealed that medium conditioned by LLC-bearing lungs selectively recruited Tregs at higher frequencies than did medium conditioned by normal lungs. Neutralization of CCL22 significantly reduced this selective recruitment toward both conditioned media. A series of immunomagnetic isolations, FACS, and flow cytometric analyses were used to isolate different cellular fractions from both normal and LLC-bearing lungs. When isolated, only the NK-containing fractions secreted CCL22, and the same fraction isolated from LLC-bearing lungs secreted higher levels. Depletion of NK cells from both normal and LLC-bearing lung tissue significantly reduced CCL22 secretion, suggesting that a large portion of secreted CCL22 is NK cell dependent. Flow cytometric analysis of the lung NK compartments revealed no significant increase in NK cell numbers across LLC-bearing lung tissue as a whole as compared with normal tissue. However, immunofluorescent staining revealed an increased frequency of NK cells at the tumor periphery that were closely associated with the elevated FoxP3+ infiltrate.
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1 This work was supported by the Medical Research Service of the Veterans Affairs and by National Institute of Health Grants MRIY CA97813 and CA8566.
2 Current address: 114 Doughty Street, Strom Thurmond Building Room 547, Charleston, SC 29403. E-mail address: maillou{at}musc.edu
3 Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. M. Rita I. Young, Research Service, (151), 109 Bee Street, Ralph H. Johnson Veterans Affairs Hospital, Charleston, SC 29401-5799. E-mail adress: rita.young{at}med.va.gov
4 Abbreviations used in this paper: Treg, regulatory T cell; LLC, Lewis lung carcinoma; MFI, mean fluorescence intensity; ND, not detected.
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