Progressively enhancing stemness of adoptively transferred T cells with PI3Kd blockade improves metabolism and anti-tumor immunity
Generating stem-like memory T cells (TSCM) is a potential strategy to improve adoptive immunotherapy. Elucidating optimal ways to modulate signaling pathways that enrich TSCM properties could identify approaches to achieve this goal. We discovered herein that blocking the PI3Kd pathway pharmaceutically to varying degrees can generate T cells with increasingly heightened stemness properties, based on the progressive enrichment of the transcription factors Tcf-1 and Lef-1. T cells with enhanced stemness features exhibited metabolic plasticity, marked by improved mitochondrial function and glucose uptake after tumor recognition. Conversely, T cells with low or medium stemness were less metabolically dynamic, vulnerable to antigen-induced cell death, and expressed more inhibitory checkpoint receptors. Only TCR- or CAR-specific T cells with high stemness persisted in vivo and mounted protective immunity to tumors. Likewise, the strongest level of PI3Kd blockade in vitro generated human tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and CAR T cells with elevated stemness properties, in turn bolstering their capacity to regress human solid tumors. The stemness level of T cells in vitro was important, ultimately impacting their efficacy in mice bearing three distinct solid tumors. Lef-1 and Tcf-1 sustained anti-tumor protection by donor high CD8+ TSCM or CD4+ Th17SCM, as deletion of either one compromised the therapeutic efficacy. Collectively, these findings highlight the importance of strategic modulation of PI3Kd signaling in T cells to induce stemness and lasting protective responses to solid tumors.