Intravenous administration of BCG in mice promotes natural killer and T cell-mediated antitumor immunity in the lung

Eduardo Moreo, Aitor Jarit-Cabanillas, Iñaki Robles-Vera, Santiago Uranga, Claudia Guerrero, Ana Belén Gómez, Pablo Mata-Martínez, Luna Minute, Miguel Araujo-Voces, María José Felgueres, Gloria Esteso, Iratxe Uranga-Murillo, Maykel Arias, Julián Pardo, Carlos Martín, Mar Valés-Gómez, Carlos Fresno, David Sancho and Nacho Aguiló ()
Additional contact information
Eduardo Moreo: Universidad de Zaragoza, IIS-Aragon
Aitor Jarit-Cabanillas: Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (CNIC)
Iñaki Robles-Vera: Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (CNIC)
Santiago Uranga: Universidad de Zaragoza, IIS-Aragon
Claudia Guerrero: Universidad de Zaragoza, IIS-Aragon
Ana Belén Gómez: Universidad de Zaragoza, IIS-Aragon
Pablo Mata-Martínez: Hospital la Paz Institute for Health Research (IdiPAZ)
Luna Minute: Hospital la Paz Institute for Health Research (IdiPAZ)
Miguel Araujo-Voces: Universidad de Zaragoza, IIS-Aragon
María José Felgueres: Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (CNB-CSIC)
Gloria Esteso: Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (CNB-CSIC)
Iratxe Uranga-Murillo: Universidad de Zaragoza, IIS-Aragon
Maykel Arias: Universidad de Zaragoza, IIS-Aragon
Julián Pardo: Universidad de Zaragoza, IIS-Aragon
Carlos Martín: Universidad de Zaragoza, IIS-Aragon
Mar Valés-Gómez: Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (CNB-CSIC)
Carlos Fresno: Hospital la Paz Institute for Health Research (IdiPAZ)
David Sancho: Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (CNIC)
Nacho Aguiló: Universidad de Zaragoza, IIS-Aragon

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-17

Abstract: Abstract Intravesical administration of Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) was one of the first FDA-approved immunotherapies and remains a standard treatment for bladder cancer. Previous studies have demonstrated that intravenous (IV) administration of BCG is well-tolerated and effective in preventing tuberculosis infection in animals. Here, we examine IV BCG in several preclinical lung tumor models. Our findings demonstrate that BCG inoculation reduced tumor growth and prolonged mouse survival in models of lung melanoma metastasis and orthotopic lung adenocarcinoma. Moreover, IV BCG treatment was well-tolerated with no apparent signs of acute toxicity. Mechanistically, IV BCG induced tumor-specific CD8+ T cell responses, which were dependent on type 1 conventional dendritic cells, as well as NK cell-mediated immunity. Lastly, we also show that IV BCG has an additive effect on anti-PD-L1 checkpoint inhibitor treatment in mouse lung tumors that are otherwise resistant to anti-PD-L1 as monotherapy. Overall, our study demonstrates the potential of systemic IV BCG administration in the treatment of lung tumors, highlighting its ability to enhance immune responses and augment immune checkpoint blockade efficacy.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41768-8 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:14:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-023-41768-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-41768-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().