PIM-2 protein kinase negatively regulates T cell responses in transplantation and tumor immunity

In this study, we investigated the role of the PIM kinases with respect to T cell responses in transplantation and tumor immunity. We found that the PIM-2 isoform negatively regulated T cell responses to alloantigen, in contrast to the PIM-1 and PIM-3 isoforms, which acted as positive regulators. T cells deficient in PIM-2 demonstrated increased T cell differentiation toward Th1 subset, proliferation, and migration to target organs after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation, resulting in dramatically accelerated graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) severity. Restoration of PIM-2 expression markedly attenuated the pathogenicity of PIM-2–deficient T cells to induce GVHD. On the other hand, mice deficient in PIM-2 readily rejected syngeneic tumor, which was primarily dependent on CD8+ T cells. Furthermore, silencing PIM-2 in polyclonal or antigen-specific CD8+ T cells substantially enhanced their antitumor response in adoptive T cell immunotherapy. We conclude that PIM-2 kinase plays a prominent role in suppressing T cell responses, and provide a strong rationale to target PIM-2 for cancer immunotherapy.

Source: Journal of Clinical Investigation - May 22, 2018 Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Anusara Daenthanasanmak, Yongxia Wu, Supinya Iamsawat, Hung D. Nguyen, David Bastian, MengMeng Zhang, M. Hanief Sofi, Shilpak Chatterjee, Elizabeth G. Hill, Shikhar Mehrotra, Andrew S. Kraft, Xue-Zhong Yu Source Type: research