PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Antonio Sorrentino
AU  - Ayse Nur Menevse
AU  - Tillmann Michels
AU  - Valentina Volpin
AU  - Franziska Christine Durst
AU  - Julian Sax
AU  - Maria Xydia
AU  - Abir Hussein
AU  - Slava Stamova
AU  - Steffen Spoerl
AU  - Nicole Heuschneider
AU  - Jasmin Muehlbauer
AU  - Katharina Marlene Jeltsch
AU  - Anchana Rathinasamy
AU  - Melanie Werner-Klein
AU  - Marco Breinig
AU  - Damian Mikietyn
AU  - Christian Kohler
AU  - Isabel Poschke
AU  - Sabrina Purr
AU  - Olivia Reidell
AU  - Catarina Martins Freire
AU  - Rienk Offringa
AU  - Claudia Gebhard
AU  - Rainer Spang
AU  - Michael Rehli
AU  - Michael Boutros
AU  - Christian Schmidl
AU  - Nisit Khandelwal
AU  - Philipp Beckhove
TI  - Salt-inducible kinase 3 protects tumor cells from cytotoxic T-cell attack by promoting TNF-induced NF-κB activation
AID  - 10.1136/jitc-2021-004258
DP  - 2022 May 01
TA  - Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer
PG  - e004258
VI  - 10
IP  - 5
4099  - http://jitc.bmj.com/content/10/5/e004258.short
4100  - http://jitc.bmj.com/content/10/5/e004258.full
SO  - J Immunother Cancer2022 May 01; 10
AB  - Background Cancer immunotherapeutic strategies showed unprecedented results in the clinic. However, many patients do not respond to immuno-oncological treatments due to the occurrence of a plethora of immunological obstacles, including tumor intrinsic mechanisms of resistance to cytotoxic T-cell (TC) attack. Thus, a deeper understanding of these mechanisms is needed to develop successful immunotherapies.Methods To identify novel genes that protect tumor cells from effective TC-mediated cytotoxicity, we performed a genetic screening in pancreatic cancer cells challenged with tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes and antigen-specific TCs.Results The screening revealed 108 potential genes that protected tumor cells from TC attack. Among them, salt-inducible kinase 3 (SIK3) was one of the strongest hits identified in the screening. Both genetic and pharmacological inhibitions of SIK3 in tumor cells dramatically increased TC-mediated cytotoxicity in several in vitro coculture models, using different sources of tumor and TCs. Consistently, adoptive TC transfer of TILs led to tumor growth inhibition of SIK3-depleted cancer cells in vivo. Mechanistic analysis revealed that SIK3 rendered tumor cells susceptible to tumor necrosis factor (TNF) secreted by tumor-activated TCs. SIK3 promoted nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) nuclear translocation and inhibited caspase-8 and caspase-9 after TNF stimulation. Chromatin accessibility and transcriptome analyses showed that SIK3 knockdown profoundly impaired the expression of prosurvival genes under the TNF–NF-κB axis. TNF stimulation led to SIK3-dependent phosphorylation of the NF-κB upstream regulators inhibitory-κB kinase and NF-kappa-B inhibitor alpha on the one side, and to inhibition of histone deacetylase 4 on the other side, thus sustaining NF-κB activation and nuclear stabilization. A SIK3-dependent gene signature of TNF-mediated NF-κB activation was found in a majority of pancreatic cancers where it correlated with increased cytotoxic TC activity and poor prognosis.Conclusion Our data reveal an abundant molecular mechanism that protects tumor cells from cytotoxic TC attack and demonstrate that pharmacological inhibition of this pathway is feasible.Data are available in a public, open access repository. Gene Expression Omnibus public functional genomics data repository (accession code GSE202305).