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CANCER STEM CELLS AND
ONCOLOGY RESEARCH
11
th
International Conference on
Journal of Medical Oncology and Therapeutics
|
Volume 3
QUIESCENT EPITHELIAL
STEM CELLS EVADE
IMMUNE SURVEILLANCE
Judith Agudo
1,2,3
1
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, USA
2
Harvard Medical School, USA
3
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, USA
T
here is a long-standing interest in understanding the
immunogenicity of adult stem cells due to their role
in tissue homeostasis, regeneration and oncogenesis.
Notably, their self-renewing capacity means they are long-
lived, and can accumulatemutations over time, whichwould
result in neo-antigens. These neoantigens could make
stem cells potential targets of T cells. However, whether
they are subject to immune surveillance is unknown. Here,
we utilized a novel technology to study immune responses
against virtually any cell type, along with specific stem cell
mouse models, to interrogate the immunogenicity of adult
stem cells in their niche
in vivo
. We found that immune
privilege is not a general property of adult stem cells.
Instead, our studies revealed that most epithelial stemcells,
such as those in the gut and ovary are subject to immune
clearance, but that highly quiescent stem cells, specifically
in the skin and muscle, escape immune detection. This is
an intrinsic property of the resting stem cells resulting from
downregulation of MHC class I and other key components
of the antigen presentation machinery, which results in
complete protection from immune attack. These studies
established that quiescent tissue stem cells hide from
immune surveillance and protect their integrity. This helps
to understand why mutations in long-lived stem cells do
not lead to immune clearance and, suggests how cancer
stem cells may evade immune surveillance.
Judith_agudo@dfci.harvard.eduCIRCULATING TUMOR
CELL EX-VIVO CULTURE
FROM PATIENT
WITH COLORECTAL
CANCER DISPLAY
HETEROGENEITY AND
CANCER STEM CELL
HALLMARKS
J Pannequin
1
, F Grillet
1
and
F Hollande
1,2
1
Institut De Genomique Fonctionnelle, France
2
University of Melbourne, Australia
T
he aim of the present project is to functionnaly charac-
terize an unknown population of cancer cells responsi-
ble of tumor dissemination, namely circulating tumor cells
in the context of colorectal cancer Although circulating
tumor cells (ctc) have attracted a broad interest as poten-
tial markers of tumor progression and treatment response,
their characterization remains minimal. Here, we designed
straightforward conditions for the isolation and mainte-
nance of colon ctcs in culture based on their self-renew-
ing abilities. We generated the first ctc cell lines from the
blood of three patients with advanced metastatic colorec-
tal cancer (crc). These cells display cancer stem cell (csc)
hallmarks and are able to generate metastasis when inject-
ed in the spleen of nude mice. Taken together our results
show that ctc lines could represent a clinical useful tool
to recapitulate tumor heterogeneity and to rapidly predict
treatment response in patients with crc facilitating access
to personalized medicine
Julie.pannequin@igf.cnrs.frJ Med Oncl Ther 2018, Volume 3