Function of Human Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes in Early-Stage Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

Cancer progression is marked by dysfunctional tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) with high inhibitory receptor (IR) expression. Because IR blockade has led to clinical responses in some patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), we investigated how IRs influenced CD8⁺ TIL function from freshly digested early-stage NSCLC tissues using a killing assay and intracellular cytokine staining after in vitro T-cell restimulation. Early-stage lung cancer TIL function was heterogeneous with only about one third of patients showing decrements in cytokine production and lytic function. TIL hypofunction did not correlate with clinical factors, coexisting immune cells (macrophages, neutrophils, or CD4⁺ T regulatory cells), nor with PD-1, TIGIT, TIM-3, CD39, or CTLA-4 expression. Instead, we found that the presence of the integrin α_eβ₇ (CD103), characteristic of tissue-resident memory cells (T_RM), was positively associated with cytokine production, whereas expression of the transcription factor Eomesodermin (Eomes) was negatively associated with TIL function. These data suggest that the functionality of CD8⁺ TILs from early-stage NSCLCs may be influenced by competition between an antitumor CD103⁺ T_RM program and an exhaustion program marked by Eomes expression. Understanding the mechanisms of T-cell function in the progression of lung cancer may have clinical implications for immunotherapy.