Victoria Neumeyer

As the mechanisms underlying tumorigenesis become better understood, the dynamic roles of cellular components of the tumor microenvironment, and their cross-talk with tumor cells, have come to light as key drivers of disease progression and have emerged as important targets of new cancer therapies. In the field of oncolytic virus (OV) therapy, stromal cells have been considered as potential barriers to viral spread, thus limiting virus replication and therapeutic outcome. However, new evidence indicates that intratumoral fibroblasts could support virus replication. We have demonstrated in a rat model of stromal-rich intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (CCA) that vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) can be localized within intratumoral hepatic stellate cells (HSCs), in addition to tumor cells, when the virus was applied via hepatic arterial infusion. Furthermore, VSV was shown to efficiently kill CCA cells and activated HSCs, and co-culture of CCA and HSCs increased viral titers. Interestingly, this effect is also observed when each cell type is cultured alone in a conditioned medium of the other cell type, indicating that secreted cell factors are at least partially responsible for this phenomenon. Partial reduction in sensitivity to type I interferons was observed in co-culture systems, providing a possible mechanism for the increased viral titers. Together, the results indicate that targeting activated HSCs with VSV could provide an additional mechanism of OV therapy, which, until now has not been considered. Furthermore, these findings suggest that VSV is a potentially powerful therapeutic agent for stromal-rich tumors, such as CCA and pancreatic cancer, both of which are very difficult to treat with conventional therapy and have a very poor prognosis.

Background/Objectives: Oncolytic virotherapy is a promising approach in cancer immunotherapy. We have previously described a recombinant hybrid oncolytic virus (OV), VSV-NDV, which has a favorable safety profile and therapeutic immunogenicity, leading to direct oncolysis, abscopal effects, and prolonged survival in syngeneic in vivo tumor models. While OVs are known to mediate systemic anti-tumor immune responses, the detailed characterization of local and systemic immune responses to fusogenic oncolytic virotherapy remains unexplored. Methods and Results: We analyzed immune cell compartments in the spleen, blood, tumor-draining lymph nodes (TDLNs), and tumors over the course of VSV-NDV therapy in a bilateral syngeneic melanoma mouse model. Our results revealed significant local infiltration and activation of T lymphocytes in tumors and globally in the blood and spleen. Notably, in vivo CD8⁺ T cell depletion led to complete abrogation of the tumor response, highlighting the crucial role of T cells in promoting the therapeutic effects of oncolytic VSV-NDV. In vitro co-culture experiments enabled the interrogation of human immune cell responses to VSV-NDV-mediated oncolysis. Human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) were efficiently stimulated by exposure to VSV-NDV-infected cancer cells, which recapitulates the in vivo murine findings. Conclusions: Taken together, these data characterize a broad anti-tumor immune cell response to oncolytic VSV-NDV therapy and suggest that CD8⁺ T cells play a decisive role in therapeutic outcome, which supports the further development of this chimeric vector as a multimechanistic immunotherapy for solid cancers.

Attachment to the host gastric mucosa is a key step in Helicobacter pylori infection. Recently, a novel adhesin, HopQ, was shown to bind distinct host CEACAM proteins—an interaction that was found to be essential for the translocation of CagA, a key virulence factor of H. pylori. The HopQ–CEACAM1 co-crystal structure revealed a binding mode dependent on loops in HopQ that are clasped by disulfide bonds. In this study, we investigated the importance of these cysteine residues for CEACAM1 engagement by H. pylori. We observed a loss of CEACAM1 binding and CagA translocation upon disruption of the disulfide bond in loop CL1 (connecting C103 to C132 in HopQ). Deletion of the Dsb-like oxidoreductase HP0231 did not affect cell surface expression of HopQ or alter the interaction of H. pylori with target cells. Although HP0231 deletion was previously described to impede CagA translocation, our results indicate that this occurs through a HopQ-independent mechanism. Together, our results open up new avenues to therapeutically target the HopQ–CEACAM1 interaction and reduce the burden of pathogenic H. pylori.

The E3 ubiquitin ligase ring finger protein 43 (RNF43) is frequently mutated in gastric tumors and loss of RNF43 expression was suggested to be one of the key events during the transition from adenoma to gastric carcinoma. Functional studies on RNF43 have shown that it acts as a tumor suppressor by negatively regulating Wnt signaling. Interestingly, we observed that RNF43^H292R/H295R mice bearing two point mutations in the ring domain displayed thickening of the mucosa at early age but did not develop neoplasia. In this study, we infected these mice for 6 months with Helicobacter pylori, which has been described as one of the major risk factors for gastric cancer. Mice bearing mutant RNF43^H292R/H295R showed higher gastritis scores upon H. pylori infection compared to wild-type mice, accompanied by increased lymphocyte infiltration and Ifng levels. Furthermore, infected Rnf43 mutant mice developed atrophy, hyperplasia and MUC2 expressing metaplasia and displayed higher levels of the gastric stem cell marker CD44 and canonical NF-κB signaling. In summary, our results show that transactivating mutations in the tumor suppressor Rnf43 can worsen H. pylori induced pathology.

Ring finger protein 43 (RNF43) is an E3 ubiquitin ligase that has been described to be frequently mutated in gastrointestinal cancers. RNF43 downregulation was associated with distant metastasis, TNM stage and poorer survival in patients with gastric and colorectal cancers. Functional analysis has shown that overexpressed RNF43 negatively regulates Wnt signalling by ubiquitinating Frizzled receptors and targeting them for degradation and by sequestering T-cell factor 4 (TCF4) to the nuclear membrane, thereby inhibiting Wnt-mediated transcription. In the stomach, RNF43 overexpression was shown to impair stem-like properties and to be negatively correlated with expression of Wnt-target genes. In this study, we show that RNF43 knockdown enhances the tumourigenic potential of gastric and colorectal cancer cell lines in vitro and in vivo. Thus, loss of RNF43 leads to increased proliferation and anchorage-independent growth as well as increased invasive capacity. In a xenograft model, RNF43 depletion enhanced tumour growth. Furthermore, we established two mouse models in which mutations in the RING domain of RNF43 were introduced. In the intestine and colon, loss of Rnf43 did not induce changes in epithelial architecture or proliferation. In contrast, in the stomach, thickening of the mucosa, hyperplasia and cellular atypia were observed in these mice. Notably, this was independent of elevated Wnt signalling. Together, our results show that RNF43 plays a tumour suppressive role in gastric and colorectal cancer cells and that the loss of its function alters gastric tissue homeostasis in vivo.