Summary
Tumors subvert immune cell function to evade immune responses1, and the mechanisms of tumor immune evasion are incompletely understood. Here we show that tumors induce de novo steroidogenesis in T lymphocytes to evade anti-tumor immunity. Using a novel transgenic fluorescent reporter mouse line we identify and characterize de novo steroidogenic T cells. Genetic ablation of T cell steroidogenesis restricts primary tumor growth and metastatic dissemination in mouse models. Steroidogenic T cells dysregulate anti-tumor immunity, which can be restored by inhibiting the steroidogenesis pathway. This study demonstrates that T cell de novo steroidogenesis is a cause of anti-tumor immunosuppression and a druggable target.
Copyright
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.