Targeting autophagy inhibits melanoma growth by enhancing NK cells infiltration in a CCL5-dependent manner

Abstract

Significance The failure in achieving a durable clinical immune response against cancer cells depends on the ability of cancer cells to establish a microenvironment that prevent cytotoxic immune cells to infiltrate tumors and kill cancer cells. Therefore, the key approach to achieving successful antitumor immune response is to harness strategies allowing the reorientation of immune cells to the tumor. Herein we reveal that inhibiting autophagy induces a massive infiltration of natural killer immune cells into the tumor bed, and a subsequent dramatic decrease in the tumor volume of melanomas. These results highlight the role of targeting autophagy in breaking the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment barrier, thus allowing the infiltration of natural killer cells into the tumor to kill cancer cells.