Non-oncogenic Acute Viral Infections Disrupt Anti-cancer Responses and Lead to Accelerated Cancer-Specific Host Death

Non-oncogenic Acute Viral Infections Disrupt Anti-cancer Responses and Lead to Accelerated Cancer-Specific Host Death

Blog Article

In light of increased cancer prevalence and cancer-specific deaths in patients with infections, we investigated whether infections alter anti-tumor immune responses.We report that acute influenza infection of the lung promotes distal melanoma growth in the dermis and leads to accelerated cancer-specific host death.Furthermore, we show that during influenza infection, anti-melanoma CD8+ T cells are here shunted from the tumor to the infection site, where they express high levels of the inhibitory receptor programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1).Immunotherapy to block PD-1 reverses this loss of anti-tumor CD8+ T cells from the tumor and decreases infection-induced tumor growth.

Our findings show that acute non-oncogenic infection can promote cancer growth, raising concerns regarding acute viral illness sequelae.They also suggest an unexpected role for PD-1 blockade in cancer immunotherapy and provide insight into the immune response when faced here with concomitant challenges.