Evasion of immunosurveillance by genomic alterations of PPARγ/RXRα in bladder cancer

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

  • Manav Korpal
  • Xiaoling Puyang
  • Zhenhua Jeremy Wu
  • Roland Seiler
  • Craig Furman
  • Htoo Zarni Oo
  • Michael Seiler
  • Sean Irwin
  • Vanitha Subramanian
  • Jaya Julie Joshi
  • Victoria Rimkunas
  • Davide Tortora
  • Hua Yang
  • Namita Kumar
  • Galina Kuznetsov
  • Mark Matijevic
  • Jess Chow
  • Pavan Kumar
  • Jian Zou
  • Jacob Feala
  • Laura Corson
  • Ryan Henry
  • Anand Selvaraj
  • Allison Davis
  • Kristjan Bloudoff
  • James Douglas
  • Bernhard Kiss
  • Morgan E. Roberts
  • Ladan Fazli
  • Peter C Black
  • Peter Fekkes
  • Peter G Smith
  • Markus Warmuth
  • Linhua Yu
  • Ming-Hong Hao
  • Nicholas Larsen
  • Mads Daugaard
  • Ping Zhu
Muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) is an aggressive disease with limited therapeutic options. Although immunotherapies are approved for MIBC, the majority of patients fail to respond, suggesting existence of complementary immune evasion mechanisms. Here, we report that the PPARγ/RXRα pathway constitutes a tumor-intrinsic mechanism underlying immune evasion in MIBC. Recurrent mutations in RXRα at serine 427 (S427F/Y), through conformational activation of the PPARγ/RXRα heterodimer, and focal amplification/overexpression of PPARγ converge to modulate PPARγ/RXRα-dependent transcription programs. Immune cell-infiltration is controlled by activated PPARγ/RXRα that inhibits expression/secretion of inflammatory cytokines. Clinical data sets and an in vivo tumor model indicate that PPARγHigh/RXRαS427F/Y impairs CD8+ T-cell infiltration and confers partial resistance to immunotherapies. Knockdown of PPARγ or RXRα and pharmacological inhibition of PPARγ significantly increase cytokine expression suggesting therapeutic approaches to reviving immunosurveillance and sensitivity to immunotherapies. Our study reveals a class of tumor cell-intrinsic “immuno-oncogenes” that modulate the immune microenvironment of cancer.
Original languageEnglish
Article number103
JournalNature Communications
Volume8
ISSN2041-1723
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017
Externally publishedYes

ID: 316427128