HMMR triggers immune evasion of hepatocellular carcinoma by inactivation of phagocyte killing.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) acquires an immunosuppressive microenvironment, leading to unbeneficial therapeutic outcomes. Hyaluronan-mediated motility receptor (HMMR) plays a crucial role in tumor progression. Here, we found that aberrant expression of HMMR could be a predictive biomarker for the immune suppressive microenvironment of HCC, but the mechanism remains unclear. We established an HMMR-/- liver cancer mouse model to elucidate the HMMR-mediated mechanism of the dysregulated "don't eat me" signal. HMMR knockout inhibited liver cancer growth and induced phagocytosis. HMMRhigh liver cancer cells escaped from phagocytosis via sustaining CD47 signaling. Patients with HMMRhighCD47high expression showed a worse prognosis than those with HMMRlowCD47low expression. HMMR formed a complex with FAK/SRC in the cytoplasm to activate NF-κB signaling, which could be independent of membrane interaction with CD44. Notably, targeting HMMR could enhance anti-PD-1 treatment efficiency by recruiting CD8+ T cells. Overall, our data revealed a regulatory mechanism of the "don't eat me" signal and knockdown of HMMR for enhancing anti-PD-1 treatment.

Citation

Hong Wu, Yiqiang Liu, Qianshi Liu, Zhaoshen Li, Yejian Wan, Chenhui Cao, Binghuo Wu, MingXin Liu, Renchuan Liang, Lanlin Hu, Wenyi Zhang, Mei Lan, Quan Yao, Hang Zhou, Haitao Lan, Liang Chen, Yu Zhang, Xia Zhang, Xiu-Wu Bian, Chuan Xu. HMMR triggers immune evasion of hepatocellular carcinoma by inactivation of phagocyte killing. Science advances. 2024 Jun 07;10(23):eadl6083

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PMID: 38838151

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