Immunology Exam 4 Flashcards
Immune surveillance
Control and elimination of malignant cells
At times tumor immunity is incapable of preventing tumor growth or is overwhelmed by how fast tumors grow
How are tumor antigens expressed?
They are displayed by class I MHC to CTL’s which then kill tumor cells
Proof immune responses against tumors inhibit tumor growth
Lymphocytic infiltrates around some tumors and enlargement of draining lymph nodes correlate with better prognosis
Proof tumor rejection shows features of adaptive immunity and is mediated by lymphocytes?
Transplants of tumors between syngeneic animals are rejected, and more rapidly if the animals have been previously exposed to that tumor; immunity to tumor transplants can be transferred by lymphocytes from a tumor bearing animal
Proof the immune system protects against the growth of tumors
Immunodeficient individuals have an increase incidence of some types of tumors
Proof tumors evade immune surveillance in part by inhibiting T cells
Therapeutic blockade of T cell inhibitory receptors such as PD-1 and CTLA-4 leads to tumor remission
Types of tumor antigens that elicit immune responses
Neoantigens encoded by randomly mutated genes, Products of oncogenes or mutated tumor suppressor genes, Aberrantly expressed or overexpressed structurally normal proteins, and viral antigens
Neoantigens
Encoded by randomly mutated genes unrelated to tumorigenesis (passenger mutations)
Causes genetic instability of malignant cells
Neoantigens are the mutated proteins expressed from the passenger mutations
Not present in normal cells
Will not induce tolerance since they are not expressed in normal cells
Mutated protein antigens can be recognized by T cells if peptides take the mutated amino acid sequence and display it by an MHC molecule
Passenger mutations
Mutations that play no role in tumorigenesis
Expression of mutated proteins (neoantigens)
Number of these mutations determines the strength of the antitumor responses patients mount and the effectiveness of immunotherapies that enhance the responses
Products of oncogenes or mutated tumor suppressor genes
Caused by driver mutations
All of these mutations in the amino acids of these mutated proteins are all seen as foreign
Driver mutations
Mutations in genes that are involved in the process of malignant transformation
Aberrantly expressed or overexpressed structurally normal proteins
Protein expression that is dysregulated by tumor cells
Their expression could be enough to make them immunogenic
Self proteins expressed only in embryonic tissues may not induce tolerance but of the same proteins are expressed in tumors they may be recognized as foreign by the immune system
Viral antigens
Tumors caused by oncogenic viruses
The tumor antigens may be encoded by the viruses
Ex. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), and human papillomavirus (HPV)
What is the role of CTLs in tumor rejected in animal models?
Tumors can be destroyed by transferring tumor-reactive CD8+ cells into tumor bearing animals
Abundant CTL infiltration predicts a more favorable clinical course compared with tumors with sparse CTLs
How can tumors of different cell types stimulate CTL responses?
Apoptosis tumor cells or proteins released from necrotic tumor cells or proteins released from necrotic tumor cells are ingested by hosts dendritic cell to undergo cross-presentation
DCs can also present ingested tumor peptides via class II MHC
Therefore CD4 and CD8 cells can recognize tumor antigens
Not known how APCs get costimulators to activate T cells
How are T cells activated with costimulators for tumor cells?
When tumor cells grow, they take up room and nutrients/blood from normal tissue
These healthy cells could be injured and therefore die
This would release DAMPs to activate the innate immune system
Therefore costimulators would be produced
Ways body kills tumor cells
(Think simple)
Antitumor CD4 cells, especially Th1 cells
Th1 cells activate macrophages.
Macrophages and NK cells are capable of killing tumor cells
Antitumor antibodies are also present in cancer patients
Ways tumors evade immune system
- Stop expressing class I MHC so peptides cannot be shown to CD8 cells
Ex. Mutations in beta2-micro globulin which is part of MHC complex - Can inhibit T cell activation by over-expressing proteins such as PD-1 or induce their expression.
Can cause repeated stimulation of T cells to cause immune system to express PD-1. CD8 cells then experience exhaustion and do not attack antigen anymore. - Can induce Tregs to inhibit DCs from doing their job
Can also induce myeloid derived suppressor cells
Will inhibit activation of Th1 and CD8 - Can secrete immunosuppressive cytokines like TGF-beta
Current strategies for cancer immunotherapy
Use of specific antitumor antibodies,
Introduction of autologous T cells that recognize tumor antigens,
Enhancing existing host antitumor T cell immune responses by administering antibodies that block inhibitory molecules,
Vaccination with tumor antigens
Passive immunotherapy with monoclonal antibodies
Antibodies bind to antigens on the surface of the tumors and activate host effector mechanisms such as phagocytes, NK cells, and the complement system
Types of adoptive T cell therapy
Adoptive therapy with autologous tumor specific T cells, and Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) expressing T cells
Adoptive therapy with autologous tumor specific T cells
T cells are isolated from patient
Expanded by culture with growth factors and injected into patient
They migrate to tumor and kill it
Also inject the cells with T cell stimulating cytokines like IL-2
With traditional chemo the results are inconsistent because perhaps the frequency of tumor specific T cells are too low. Might need to isolate TCRs and introducing the TCRs to autologous T cells before transfer
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) expressing T cells
Blood T cells from patient are transduced with viral vectors that encode a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)
CAR on T cells recognizes a surface antigen on tumor cells and intracellular signaling domains from the TCR
Is able to recognize antigen and send signals to T cells to activate them.
Remarkable efficiency in treating and curing B cell derived leukemias and lymphomas. Does not work as well with solid tumors without injuring normal tissues and getting to the tumor sites is hard
Pros of CAR expressing T cells for tumor treatment
Avoids the limitations of MHC restriction of TCRs. Therefore can use same CAR for different patients regardless of HLA alleles
Tumors cannot evade CAR by down-regulating MHC I
Receptors provide antigen recognition from the extra cellular Ig domain and activating signals via the induced cytoplasmic domains
Cons of CAR expressing T cells
Cytokine release syndrome
Mediated by massive amounts of inflammatory cytokines
Can cause terrible inflammation but that can be treated by anti inflammatory drugs and anticytokine antibodies
What happens if CAR-T cells recognize a protein on tumor and healthy cells?
Will deplete normal B cells which will need antibody replacement therapy
Blocking inhibitory receptors on T cells for treating cancer
Removing checkpoints of the immune system
Using anti-CTLA-4 or anti-PD-1 to bind CTL-A and PD-1 which are usually unregulated in tumors
Reduces exhaustion of T cells and promotes differentiation of memory cells
Have increased chances of survival for patients with severe forms of cancer
Why might a tumor not respond to checkpoint blockade therapies?
The tumors may induce T cell expression of checkpoint molecules other than the ones being treated therapeutically
What is a sign a tumor will respond well to checkpoint blockade therapy?
If it has a high number of mutations
Means high number of neoantigens that T cells can respond to
If a patient has a deficiency in a repair enzyme and gets tons of mutations from it then they will respond more efficiently to this treatment
Who can you use anti-PD-1 therapy on for cancer?
Approved for recurrent or metastatic tumor with mismatch repair deficiencies, regardless of cell origin or histologic type of tumor
Is it beneficial to use combined use of different checkpoint inhibitors for checkpoint blockade for cancer?
Yes, it has higher rates of therapeutic success than just using one
CTLA-4 and PD-1 are treated together since they inhibit T cell activation in different ways
CTLA-4 inhibiting T cell activation
CTLA-4 on T cell binds B7 on dendritic cell so DCs are not able to bind CD28 which inhibits the T cell from activation
How does PD-1 inhibit T cell activation?
PD-1 on T cell binds PD-L1 on tumor cell which inhibits T cell activation
Tumor vaccines
Way to stimulate an immune response to tumors inside the patient
There has been little success
There are ones against neoantigens which uses the DNA of the patients tumor but it needs to be customized to the patient which would be expensive
Also the clones may overgrow and lose their MHCs and neoantigens
Can do vaccine with adjuvants and take the patients dendritic cells out and try to mimic cross presentation in the body
This is promising
Ways to avoid tumors caused by oncogenes viruses:
Get vaccinated against the virus
Ex: human papilloma virus, and hepatitis B
Genes that contribute to rejection of grafts
MHC genes
Syngeneic
Grafts that are identical to one another
Allogeneic
Grafts of same species that are different from one another
Xenogeneic
Grafts of different species
Allogeneic grafts
Allografts
Xenogeneic grafts
Xenografts
Antigens that serve as the targets of rejection
Alloantigens and xenoantigens
Antibodies and T cells that react with alloantigens and xenoantigens
Alloreactive/xenoreactive
What are transplants usually in a clinical setting? Xenografts or allografts?
Allografts
Proof for this:
Graft rejection shows memory and specificity
Adaptive immunity
Prior exposure to donor MHC leads to accelerated graft rejection
How do we know graft rejection is mediated by T lymphocytes?
The ability to reject a graft rapidly and be transferred to a naive individual by lymphocytes from a sensitized person
How do we know graft rejection requires T cells?
Depletion or inactivation of T cells using medicine or antibodies causes reduced graft rejection
Principal targets of rejection are antigens encoded?
Antigens of allografts are encoded in the MHC
The reaction to allogeneic MHC antigens on another persons cells is of the the strongest immune responses known?
Yes!
Memory and T cells are specific for foreign peptides will cross react with any allogeneic MHC molecule
Process of negative selection in the thymus eliminates cells that strongly recognize self MHC but not foreign MHC since they are not in the thymus during development of T cells
Therefore a single allogeneic graft with thousands of MHCs will cause the frequency of all reactive T cells to be 1000 fold greater than the frequency of T cells that recognize a microbial antigen
Do non-MHC proteins induce graft rejection?
Yes!
They are called minor histocompatibility antigens and are normal cellular proteins that differ in sequence between donor and recipient
They are peptides present on donors MHC molecules which trigger a T cell response
Reactions are not as strong as T cells against a foreign MHC
Direct allorecognition
DCs of graft transport to secondary lymphoid organs and display allogeneic MHC molecules by taking in MHC graft complex
Display them to CD8 cells of host which causes CD8 cells to recognize and kill graft cells
Indirect allorecognition
DCs of graft transport to secondary lymphoid organs and display allogeneic MHC molecules by taking in MHC graft complex
Display them to CD4 cells of host
CD4 cells can then:
Recognize donor MHC bound to recipient macrophage in graft which causes inflammation
Can also be activated by B cells ingesting a donor MHC and cause antibody mediated injury to graft cells
Where do costimulators come from during graft rejection
Possibly from donor cells undergoing necrosis as the organ is being transplanted
This would activate the innate immune system which would secrete cytokines
Mixed lymphocyte reaction (MLR)
In vitro T cell recognition of antigens
T cells of recipient are cultured with donor T cells to see if there would be a reaction if a transplant was to occur between them
Types of graft rejections
Hyperacute, chronic, and acute