Browsing by Subject "Met"

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) accounts for 10-15% of all breast cancer cases and has the worst clinical outcome. Characterizing features of TNBC are high recurrence and mortality rates, and the absence of three commonly targetable breast cancer biomarkers estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and HER2, limiting the number of targetable therapy options. Cytotoxic CD8 positive T cells play a crucial role in the anticancer immune response and act as a major component of successful cancer immunotherapies. However, cancer cells can evade T cell-mediated killing by overexpressing programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) resulting in T cell exhaustion and limited immune response via the interaction with programmed death protein 1 (PD-1). Systemic anti-PD-L1/PD-1 therapies aim to prevent this immunosuppressive mechanism, but they are burdened with potentially life-threatening autoimmunity-type adverse effects. Therefore, cancer cell-specific targets to downregulate PD-L1 could offer efficacious and less harmful ways to overcome PD_L1/PD-1 mediated immunosuppression. Serine protease hepsin is commonly overexpressed in many solid tumors where it is responsible for the activation of HGF/MET signaling pathway as well as degradation of desmosomes and hemidesmosomes leading to the loss of epithelial integrity, invasion, and metastasis. Earlier studies have linked hyperactive HGF/MET pathway to the upregulation of immune checkpoint molecule PD-L1. In this thesis, I show how pharmacological inhibition of hepsin leads to decreased MET activity and downregulation of PD-L1 in a panel of TNBC cell lines. My results demonstrate the potential of hepsin-mediated regulation of PD-L1 in tumor immunosuppression, and hint at the potential of hepsin as a therapeutic avenue towards safe and efficacious immunotherapy in the future. These results are part of a larger study addressing the role of hepsin as a regulator of PD-L1 breast cancer.