Fig. 5: Anti-PD-1 therapy response is modulated by the presence of tumor-infiltrating mast cells.
From: Tumor-infiltrating mast cells are associated with resistance to anti-PD-1 therapy
a Increase in mast cells in melanoma patients’ tumors after anti-PD-1 therapy. Immunostaining of human melanoma patients’ tumor showed an increased presence of mast cells after anti-PD-1 therapy (right panel) when compared to untreated individuals (left panel). Scale bars in both panels represent 200 μm. A representative staining is shown. b, c CIBERSORT analysis of three independent data sets (GSE123728 [16 pre and 23 on-therapy patients] and GSE91061 [43 pre-/on-therapy patients]) obtained from melanoma patients undergoing immune-checkpoint therapy showed a higher abundance of mast cell-related genes when compared to pre-therapy tumors and this was significant in b (n = 38; p = 0.0007) and c (n = 73; p = 0.049) due to higher number of matched pair biopsies (before and on-therapy samples). Box plots for pre-therapy tumors are represented as median (0.01153732; quartile 0.01153734), minimum (0; quartile 0.00561458), and maximum (0.07344924; quartile 0.02074330), and for on-therapy tumors are represented as median (0.01577157; quartile 0.01577157), minimum (0; quartile 0.00651041) and maximum (0.05185949; quartile 0.02311874). d Increased levels of mast cells in immune-checkpoint therapy non-responders. CIBERSORT analysis of RNASeq data set from MD Anderson trial (pre- and on-therapy patients (n = 23; Helmink et al.32)) revealed higher mast cell levels in anti-PD-1 therapy non-responder population. However, this increase was not significant due to smaller patient numbers. Data are presented as mean values ± SEM. A one-sided paired t-test was used for analysis when p-values are provided. Source data are provided as a Source Data file (data are included as part of Supplementary Fig. 10).
