Myosin IIa activation is crucial in breast cancer derived galectin-1 mediated tolerogenic dendritic cell...

Tolerogenic dendritic cells (tDCs) play important roles in immune tolerance, autoimmune disease, tissue transplantation, and the tumor micro-environment. Factors that induce tDCs have been reported, however the intracellular mechanisms involved are rarely discussed.

Circulating CD14(+)CD16(+) of breast cancer patients and induced CD14(+)CD16(+) DCs were identified as tDCs by treating CD14(+) monocytes with galectin-1 and cancer cell-derived medium combined with IL-4 and GM-CSF. In addition, the 4T1 breast cancer syngeneic xenograft model was used to investigate the effect of galectin-1 in vivo.

The CD14(+)CD16(+) tDC population in the breast cancer patients was comparatively higher than that in the healthy donors, and both the MDA-MB-231 conditioned medium and galectin-1 could induce tDC differentiation. In a BALB/c animal model, the 4T1 breast cancer cell line enhanced IL-10 expression in CD11c(+) DCs which was down-regulated after knocking down the galectin-1 expression of 4T1 cells. Analysis of galectin-1 interacting proteins showed that myosin IIa was a major target of galectin-1 after internalization through a caveolin-dependent endocytosis. Myosin IIa specific inhibitor could diminish the effects of galectin-1 on monocyte-derived tDCs and also block the 4T1 cell induced CD11c(+)/Ly6G(+)/IL-10(+) in the BALB/c mice.

Galectin-1 can induce tDCs after internalizing into CD14(+) monocytes through the caveolae-dependent pathway and activating myosin IIa. For the breast cancer patients with a high galectin-1 expression, blebbistatin and genistein show potential in immune modulation and cancer immunotherapy.

Myosin IIa activation and galectin-1 endocytosis are important in tumor associated tDC development.