A local human Vδ1 T cell population is associated with survival in nonsmall-cell lung cancer.
Wu Y., Biswas D., Usaite I., Angelova M., Boeing S., Karasaki T., Veeriah S., Czyzewska-Khan J., Morton C., Joseph M., Hessey S., Reading J., Georgiou A., Al-Bakir M., TRACERx Consortium None., McGranahan N., Jamal-Hanjani M., Hackshaw A., Quezada SA., Hayday AC., Swanton C.
Murine tissues harbor signature γδ T cell compartments with profound yet differential impacts on carcinogenesis. Conversely, human tissue-resident γδ cells are less well defined. In the present study, we show that human lung tissues harbor a resident Vδ1 γδ T cell population. Moreover, we demonstrate that Vδ1 T cells with resident memory and effector memory phenotypes were enriched in lung tumors compared with nontumor lung tissues. Intratumoral Vδ1 T cells possessed stem-like features and were skewed toward cytolysis and helper T cell type 1 function, akin to intratumoral natural killer and CD8+ T cells considered beneficial to the patient. Indeed, ongoing remission post-surgery was significantly associated with the numbers of CD45RA-CD27- effector memory Vδ1 T cells in tumors and, most strikingly, with the numbers of CD103+ tissue-resident Vδ1 T cells in nonmalignant lung tissues. Our findings offer basic insights into human body surface immunology that collectively support integrating Vδ1 T cell biology into immunotherapeutic strategies for nonsmall cell lung cancer.