Dysfunctional CD8 T Cells Form a Proliferative, Dynamically Regulated Compartment within Human Melanoma

Hanjie Li, Anne M. van der Leun, Ido Yofe, Yaniv Lubling, Dikla Gelbard-Solodkin, Alexander C. J. van Akkooi, Marlous van den Braber, Elisa A. Rozeman, John B. A. G. Haanen, Christian U. Blank, Hugo M. Horlings, Eyal David, Yael Baran, Akhiad Bercovich, Aviezer Lifshitz, Ton N. Schumacher, Amos Tanay, Ido Amit

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Tumor immune cell compositions play a major role in response to immunotherapy, but the heterogeneity and dynamics of immune infiltrates in human cancer lesions remain poorly characterized. Here, we identify conserved intratumoral CD4 and CD8 T cell behaviors in scRNA-seq data from 25 melanoma patients. We discover a large population of CD8 T cells showing continuous progression from an early effector "transitional" into a dysfunctional T cell state. CD8 T cells that express a complete cytotoxic gene set are rare, and TCR sharing data suggest their independence from the transitional and dysfunctional cell states. Notably, we demonstrate that dysfunctional T cells are the major intratumoral proliferating immune cell compartment and that the intensity of the dysfunctional signature is associated with tumor reactivity. Our data demonstrate that CD8 T cells previously defined as exhausted are in fact a highly proliferating, clonal, and dynamically differentiating cell population within the human tumor microenvironment.

Errata: Errata: We correct errors due to a mistake in the Monte Carlo code in Sec. II of our paper which represent the overlap 𝒪 and the ratio 𝒩 of the respective norms of the two states in Fig. 3(b). We show here the corrected plot Fig. 3(b).

The conclusions of the results remain the same also with the new data. The decay factor values as mentioned after Eq. (22) in our paper are modified as follows. For the case of four quasielectrons, the decay coefficient is 𝜆=0.0263 for 𝒪 and 𝜆=0.0271 for 𝒩. For the case of two quasiholes and two quasielectrons, the decay coefficient is 𝜆=0.0416 for 𝒪 and 𝜆=0.0422 for 𝒩.

We note that these corrections do not alter the conclusions of Sec. II and, hence, the conclusions of our paper remain the same.

We thank B. Jaworowski for pointing out the mistakes which we have now corrected.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)775-789.e18
Number of pages15
JournalCell
Volume176
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 7 Feb 2019

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • General Biochemistry,Genetics and Molecular Biology

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