Broad spectrum integrin inhibitor GLPG-0187 bypasses immune evasion in colorectal cancer by TGF-β signaling mediated downregulation of PD-L1.

Integrin receptors have long posed as a potentially attractive target for disrupting cancer hallmarks. Promising preliminary findings with integrin inhibition as an adjuvant to chemotherapy have not translated to clinical success. However, the effect of integrin inhibition on tumor-immune cell interactions remains largely unexplored. Further investigation could shed light on a connection between integrin signaling and immune checkpoint expression, opening the path for using integrin inhibitors to sensitize otherwise resistant tumors to immunotherapy. Fluorescently labeled wild-type HCT-116 colorectal cancer cells and TALL-104 T-cells were co-cultured and treated with GLPG-0187, a small molecule integrin inhibitor, at various doses. This assay revealed dose dependent cancer cell killing, indicating that integrin inhibition may be sensitizing cancer cells to immune cells. The hypothesized mechanism involves TGF-β-mediated PD-L1 upregulation in cancer cells. To investigate this mechanism, both WT and p53-/- HCT-116 cells were pre-treated with GLPG-0187 and subsequently with latent-TGF-β. Western blot analysis demonstrated that the addition of latent-TGF-β increased the expression of PD-L1 in cancer cells. Additionally, a low dose of integrin inhibitor rescued these effects, returning PD-L1 expression back to control levels. This indicates that the immunostimulatory effects of integrin inhibition may be due to downregulation of immune checkpoint PD-L1 on cancer cells. It must be noted that the higher dose of the drug did not reduce PD-L1 expression. This could potentially be due to off-target effects conflicting with the proposed pathway; however, these findings are still under active investigation. Ongoing proteomic experiments will include a larger range of both drug and latent-TGF-β doses. Probing for additional downstream markers of TGF-β and up-stream markers of PD-L1 will help to further elucidate this mechanism. Further co-culture experiments will also include anti-PD-L1 and anti-PD-1 therapy to investigate the viability of integrin inhibition as an adjuvant to immune checkpoint blockade.