NOVEL Pathways Modulate TUMOR CELL Susceptibility to NK CELLS.

Abstract 277

NK cells play an important role in innate immune responses directed against autologous cells that have undergone viral or malignant transformation. The ability of NK cells to lyse targets is primarily dependent on the expression of various inhibitory or activating receptors. However, transformed cells have also developed mechanisms to evade immune surveillance and the molecular basis for target resistance to immune-mediated lysis is not well understood. To address this issue we undertook a genetic screening approach to identify novel pathways that modulate tumor cell susceptibility to NK cell lysis. Our genetic screen utilized a subset of the TRC1 lentiviral shRNA library developed at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. The library subset targeted 476 protein kinases and 180 phosphatases that represent 88% and 80%, respectively, of known NCBI sequences with these functions. The library also targeted 372 genes representing tumor suppressors, DNA binding proteins as well as irrelevant shRNAs as controls. Each gene was targeted by 5 or more independent shRNAs tested individually in a 384 well format using robotic manipulations. A total of 6,144 individual shRNAs were incubated with IM-9 myeloma cells and subsequently tested for their ability to modulate response by NKL effector cells (an IL-2 dependent human NK cell line). The top 10 percentile of shRNAs inducing increased secretion of interferon-gamma (INF-γ) from NKL cells was identified. To reduce the likelihood of off-target effects, only genes that were positive for 2 or more independent shRNAs were selected for further analysis. Among the genes that increased target cell susceptibility to NK activity we found 2 members of the Jak family (Jak1 and Jak2) with Jak1 being one of the strongest hits in our screen. IM-9 myeloma cells with stable expression of at least 2 independent shRNAs targeting Jak1 and Jak2 were established and tested for their sensitivity to NKL, NK92 or primary NK cells using INF-γrelease and 51Cr release cytotoxicity assays. Stable suppression of both Jak1 and Jak2 in IM-9 cells induced a significant increase of INF-γsecretion from NK cells and increased sensitivity in cytotoxicity assay when compared to parental IM-9 or cells expressing irrelevant shRNAs. Western blot analysis showed a selective decrease of Jak1 and Jak2 protein in IM-9 cells expressing specific shRNAs but not irrelevant shRNAs. While target cells with reduced expression of Jak1 and Jak2 were more susceptible to NK cell activity, no effect was observed when Jak3 and TYK2 were silenced. We then tested the NK susceptibility of different tumor cell lines with reduced expression of Jak1 and Jak2. Seven additional tumor cell lines representing other hematologic malignancies expressing Jak1 and Jak2 shRNAs were established: myeloma (KM12BM), chronic myeloid leukemia (K562), Burkitt's lymphoma (Daudi), acute myeloid leukemia (U937, ML2 and KG1) and acute T cell leukemia (Jurkat). These experiments confirmed that Jak1 silencing can induce increased susceptibility to NK cell activity. However, this effect was more pronounced in some cases (IM-9, KM12BM, U937, KG1) compared to other cell lines where this effect was limited (K562, ML-2, Jurkat) or absent (Daudi). To investigate the mechanism for modulation of target cell susceptibility to NK cells by Jak1, we compared gene expression profiles of IM-9-Jak1-KO with IM-9 parental cells and IM-9 cells infected with an irrelevant shRNA. No difference in expression was found for ligands of activating NKG2D receptors (MICA, MICB, ULPB1, 2, 3) or ligands for NK inhibitory receptors (HLA Class I genes A, B, C, E). One of the most up-regulated genes in IM-9-Jak1-KO cells was TNFSFR10A (TRAIL-R1), a gene that is known to induce apoptotic signals upon TRAIL engagement. In contrast, FAIM3, an inhibitor of FAS (CD95) signaling, was significantly down-regulated. IM-9-Jak1-KO cells also over-expressed several GALNT genes, recently shown to be markers of TRAIL sensitivity. These results suggest that Jak1 and possibly Jak2 can modulate susceptibility of some tumor cells to NK cell lysis. The mechanism for this effect appears to be at least partly through increased sensitivity to engagement of the TRAIL/FAS extrinsic apoptotic pathway.