RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Inflammatory cell-derived CXCL3 promotes pancreatic cancer metastasis through a novel myofibroblast-hijacked cancer escape mechanism
JF Gut
JO Gut
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and British Society of Gastroenterology
SP 129
OP 147
DO 10.1136/gutjnl-2020-322744
VO 71
IS 1
A1 Xiaoting Sun
A1 Xingkang He
A1 Yin Zhang
A1 Kayoko Hosaka
A1 Patrik Andersson
A1 Jing Wu
A1 Jieyu Wu
A1 Xu Jing
A1 Qiqiao Du
A1 Xiaoli Hui
A1 Bo Ding
A1 Ziheng Guo
A1 An Hong
A1 Xuan Liu
A1 Yan Wang
A1 Qing Ji
A1 Rudi Beyaert
A1 Yunlong Yang
A1 Qi Li
A1 Yihai Cao
YR 2022
UL http://gut.bmj.com/content/71/1/129.abstract
AB Objective Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the most lethal malignancy and lacks effective treatment. We aimed to understand molecular mechanisms of the intertwined interactions between tumour stromal components in metastasis and to provide a new paradigm for PDAC therapy.Design Two unselected cohorts of 154 and 20 patients with PDAC were subjected to correlation between interleukin (IL)-33 and CXCL3 levels and survivals. Unbiased expression profiling, and genetic and pharmacological gain-of-function and loss-of-function approaches were employed to identify molecular signalling in tumour-associated macrophages (TAMs) and myofibroblastic cancer-associated fibroblasts (myoCAFs). The role of the IL-33–ST2–CXCL3–CXCR2 axis in PDAC metastasis was evaluated in three clinically relevant mouse PDAC models.Results IL-33 was specifically elevated in human PDACs and positively correlated with tumour inflammation in human patients with PDAC. CXCL3 was highly upregulated in IL-33-stimulated macrophages that were the primary source of CXCL3. CXCL3 was correlated with poor survival in human patients with PDAC. Mechanistically, activation of the IL-33–ST2–MYC pathway attributed to high CXCL3 production. The highest level of CXCL3 was found in PDAC relative to other cancer types and its receptor CXCR2 was almost exclusively expressed in CAFs. Activation of CXCR2 by CXCL3 induced a CAF-to-myoCAF transition and α-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) was uniquely upregulated by the CXCL3–CXCR2 signalling. Type III collagen was identified as the CXCL3–CXCR2-targeted adhesive molecule responsible for myoCAF-driven PDAC metastasis.Conclusions Our work provides novel mechanistic insights into understanding PDAC metastasis by the TAM-CAF interaction and targeting each of these signalling components would provide an attractive and new paradigm for treating pancreatic cancer.Data are available in a public, open access repository. Gene array and RNA-seq data are freely accessible in the public repository Gene Expression Omnibus under the links: gene expression profile of F4/80+ cells isolated from tumours implanted in wild type and St2−/− mouse: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi?acc=GSE69402. Gene expression profile of RAW264.7 monocytes treated with or without IL-33: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi?acc=GSE97657 RNA-seq data of primary mouse fibroblast treated with or without CXCL3: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo/query/acc.cgi?acc=GSE166263. Other data are available upon reasonable request.