黑色素瘤中对 TIL（肿瘤浸润淋巴细胞）过继治疗的应答与预先存在的 CD8⁺ T-髓系细胞网络相关

Adoptive cell therapy (ACT) using ex vivo-expanded tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) can eliminate or shrink metastatic melanoma, but its long-term efficacy remains limited to a fraction of patients. Using longitudinal samples from 13 patients with metastatic melanoma treated with TIL-ACT in a phase 1 clinical study, we interrogated cellular states within the tumor microenvironment (TME) and their interactions.

We performed bulk and single-cell RNA sequencing, whole-exome sequencing, and spatial proteomic analyses in pre- and post-ACT tumor tissues, finding that ACT responders exhibited higher basal tumor cell-intrinsic immunogenicity and mutational burden. Compared with nonresponders, CD8 + TILs exhibited increased cytotoxicity, exhaustion, and costimulation, whereas myeloid cells had increased type I interferon signaling in responders.

Cell-cell interaction prediction analyses corroborated by spatial neighborhood analyses revealed that responders had rich baseline intratumoral and stromal tumor-reactive T cell networks with activated myeloid populations. Successful TIL-ACT therapy further reprogrammed the myeloid compartment and increased TIL-myeloid networks.

Our systematic target discovery study identifies potential T-myeloid cell network-based biomarkers that could improve patient selection and guide the design of ACT clinical trials.