Non-redundant requirement for CXCR3 signalling during tumoricidal T-cell trafficking across tumour vascular checkpoints

Abstract

T-cell trafficking at vascular sites has emerged as a key step in antitumour immunity. Chemokines are credited with guiding the multistep recruitment of CD8+ T cells across tumour vessels. However, the multiplicity of chemokines within tumours has obscured the contributions of individual chemokine receptor/chemokine pairs to this process. Moreover, recent studies have challenged whether T cells require chemokine receptor signalling at effector sites. Here we investigate the hierarchy of chemokine receptor requirements during T-cell trafficking to murine and human melanoma. These studies reveal a non-redundant role for Gαi-coupled CXCR3 in stabilizing intravascular adhesion and extravasation of adoptively transferred CD8+ effectors that is indispensable for therapeutic efficacy. In contrast, functional CCR2 and CCR5 on CD8+ effectors fail to support trafficking despite the presence of intratumoral cognate chemokines. Taken together, these studies identify CXCR3-mediated trafficking at the tumour vascular interface as a critical checkpoint to effective T-cell-based cancer immunotherapy. Tumours secrete many lymphocyte-attracting chemokines. Here the authors show that despite the abundance of their ligands, CCR2 and CCR5 do not mediate trafficking of effector CD8 T cells into the tumour, whereas CXCR3 is essential for this process and for T-cell-based elimination of melanoma in mice.