Aberrant activation of wound healing programs within the metastatic niche facilitates lung colonization by osteosarcoma cells

Purpose Lung metastasis is responsible for nearly all deaths caused by osteosarcoma, the most common pediatric bone tumor. How malignant bone cells coerce the lung microenvironment to support metastatic growth is unclear. The purpose of this study is to identify metastasis-specific therapeutic vulnerabilities by delineating the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying osteosarcoma lung metastatic niche formation.

Experimental design Using single-cell transcriptomics (scRNA-seq), we characterized genome- and tissue-wide molecular changes induced within lung tissues by disseminated osteosarcoma cells in both immunocompetent murine models of metastasis and patient samples. We confirmed transcriptomic findings at the protein level and determined spatial relationships with multi-parameter immunofluorescence and spatial transcriptomics. Based on these findings, we evaluated the ability of nintedanib, a kinase inhibitor used to treat patients with pulmonary fibrosis, to impair metastasis progression in both immunocompetent murine osteosarcoma and immunodeficient human xenograft models. Single-nucleus and spatial transcriptomics was used to perform molecular pharmacodynamic studies that define the effects of nintedanib on tumor and non-tumor cells within the metastatic microenvironment.

Results Osteosarcoma cells induced acute alveolar epithelial injury upon lung dissemination. scRNA-seq demonstrated that the surrounding lung stroma adopts a chronic, non-resolving wound-healing phenotype similar to that seen in other models of lung injury. Accordingly, metastasis-associated lung demonstrated marked fibrosis, likely due to the accumulation of pathogenic, pro-fibrotic, partially differentiated epithelial intermediates and macrophages. Our data demonstrated that nintedanib prevented metastatic progression in multiple murine and human xenograft models by inhibiting osteosarcoma-induced fibrosis.

Conclusions Fibrosis represents a targetable vulnerability to block the progression of osteosarcoma lung metastasis. Our data support a model wherein interactions between osteosarcoma cells and epithelial cells create a pro-metastatic niche by inducing tumor deposition of extracellular matrix proteins such as fibronectin that is disrupted by the anti-fibrotic TKI nintedanib. Our data shed light on the non-cell autonomous effects of TKIs on metastasis and provide a roadmap for using single-cell and spatial transcriptomics to define the mechanism of action of TKI on metastases in animal models.

Statement of translational relevance Therapies that block metastasis have the potential to save the majority of lives lost due to solid tumors. Disseminated tumor cells must integrate into the foreign, inhospitable microenvironments they encounter within secondary organs to facilitate metastatic colonization and progression. Our study elucidated that disseminated osteosarcoma cells survive within the lung by co-opting and amplifying the lung’s endogenous wound-healing response program. This osteosarcoma-induced wound response results in fibrosis of the surrounding microenvironment. Our data implicates fibrosis and abnormal wound healing as key drivers of osteosarcoma lung metastasis that can be targeted therapeutically to disrupt metastasis progression.