IGFBP2 promotes immunosuppression associated with its mesenchymal induction and FcγRIIB phosphorylation in glioblastoma

PLoS One. 2019 Sep 27;14(9):e0222999. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0222999. eCollection 2019.

Abstract

Immunotherapy shows a promise for treating glioblastoma (GBM), the most malignant and immunosuppressive glioma. The mesenchymal phenotype of cancer cells was frequently reported to be associated with their induction of immunosuppression within the cancer microenvironment. Overexpressed insulin-like growth factor binding protein 2 (IGFBP2) promotes GBM cell migration and invasion, and contributes to glioma progression and cancer recurrence and poor survival in GBM. However, whether IGFBP2 can induce immunosuppression in GBM was not reported yet. Thus, the study applied a syngeneic mouse GBM model, human GBM samples, and cancer-immune cell co-culture experiments to investigate the effect of IGFBP2 on GBM exposed immune cells and its association with the mesenchymal induction. We found that IGFBP2 promoted the mesenchymal feature of GBM cells. The inhibition of IGFBP2 relieved immunosuppression by increasing CD8+ T and CD19+ B cells and decreasing CD163+ M2 macrophages. Further, the IGFBP2-promoted immunosuppression was associated with its induction of the mesenchymal feature of GBM cells and the inhibitory phosphorylated FcγRIIB of GBM exposed immune cells. Blocking IGFBP2 suppressed tumor growth and improved survival of tumor bearing mice in the mouse GBM model. These findings support the notion that targeting the IGFBP2 may present an effective immunotherapeutic strategy for mesenchymal GBMs.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Brain Neoplasms / immunology*
  • Brain Neoplasms / mortality
  • Brain Neoplasms / pathology
  • Cell Line, Tumor / transplantation
  • Cell Movement
  • Cell Proliferation
  • Coculture Techniques
  • Datasets as Topic
  • Disease Models, Animal
  • Female
  • Gene Expression Profiling
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic / immunology
  • Gene Knockdown Techniques
  • Glioblastoma / immunology*
  • Glioblastoma / mortality
  • Glioblastoma / pathology
  • Humans
  • Insulin-Like Growth Factor Binding Protein 2 / genetics
  • Insulin-Like Growth Factor Binding Protein 2 / immunology
  • Insulin-Like Growth Factor Binding Protein 2 / metabolism*
  • Kaplan-Meier Estimate
  • Mice
  • Phosphorylation / immunology
  • Receptors, IgG / immunology
  • Receptors, IgG / metabolism*
  • Tissue Array Analysis
  • Tumor Escape / immunology*
  • Tumor Microenvironment / immunology

Substances

  • FCGR2B protein, human
  • Fcgr2b protein, mouse
  • IGFBP2 protein, human
  • Insulin-Like Growth Factor Binding Protein 2
  • Receptors, IgG

Grants and funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant No. 81272411 and 81472754, Sonya Wei Song:Funding) and Beijing Natural Science Foundation (grant No. 7131004, Sonya Wei Song: Funding).The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.