Journal
JOURNAL OF PATHOLOGY
Volume 239, Issue 2, Pages 231-241Publisher
WILEY-BLACKWELL
DOI: 10.1002/path.4720
Keywords
CD169; macrophage; hepatocellular carcinoma; tumour microenvironments
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [81472644, 81230073, 91442205, 81471549]
- Health Medical Collaborative Innovation Program of Guangzhou [201400000001-3]
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Macrophages are a major component of most solid tumours and can exert both anti-and pro-tumourigenic functions. Although the immunosuppressive/pro-tumour roles of macrophages have been widely examined, significantly less is known about macrophage subpopulations that have potential anti-tumour properties in humans. In the present study, a population of CD169(+) macrophages with relatively high expression levels of HLA-DR and CD86 was identified in human hepatocellular carcinoma tissues. The frequency of CD169-expressing macrophages within cancer nests was significantly lower than that found in paired non-tumour areas. In vitro experiments revealed that in the presence of anti-CD3 stimulation, CD169(+) macrophages could significantly enhance the proliferation, cytotoxicity, and cytokine production capacity of CD8(+) T cells in a CD169 molecule-dependent manner. Autocrine TGF-.. produced by tumour-stimulated macrophages was involved in the down-regulation of CD169 expression on these cells. Moreover, the accumulation of CD169(+) macrophages in tumour tissues was negatively associated with disease progression and predicted favourable survival in hepatocellular carcinoma patients, which was in contrast to the trend observed for total CD68(+) macrophages. Therefore, CD169 might act as a co-stimulatory molecule for cytotoxic T-cell activation, and could define a population of tumour-infiltrating macrophages with potential anti-tumour properties in human hepatocellular carcinoma tissues. Copyright (C) 2016 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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