Serotonin receptor 5-HT_2A as a potential target for HCC immunotherapy

While recent clinical trials of combination immunotherapies for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) have shown promising clinical efficacy and survival improvements breakthroughs, there is still much room for further improvement. A key limiting factor for HCC immunotherapy is the intrinsic immunosuppression within the liver microenvironment, resulting in suboptimal priming of tumor-specific CD8 cytotoxic T cells and thus immune evasion by the tumor. Hence, identifying new key molecular pathways suppressing T-cell responses within the liver is critical for the rational design of more effective combination immunotherapies for HCC.

We identified the 5-HT_2A serotonin receptor as a potential target for HCC immunotherapy in a chemical screening approach and validated that targeting 5-HT_2A signaling could be a viable approach for HCC immunotherapy via in vitro and in vivo studies.

Disruption of 5-HT_2A signaling using either a selective antagonist small molecule, ketanserin, or by knockout of its coding gene Htr2a augments the cytotoxic effector phenotype of mouse CD8 T cells activated in vitro with immunosuppressive liver non-parenchymal cells. Ketanserin treatment of in vitro activated human CD8 T cells also increased expression of the cytotoxic effector molecules granzyme B and perforin. Abrogation of 5-HT_2A signaling was associated with increased expression of cytotoxicity-related genes such as granzyme B and reduced expression of transcription factors downstream of MAP kinase signaling. In vivo, systemic ketanserin treatment significantly prolonged survival of HCC tumor-bearing mice and was non-inferior to α-programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1)+α-vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFA) combination antibody treatment. Combining ketanserin with αPD-L1+αVEGFA antibodies also significantly prolonged survival relative to control-treated mice while preserving the occurrence of complete tumor regression observed with αPD-L1+αVEGFA treatment alone.

Together, our data describe a role for 5-HT_2A as a negative regulator of the cytotoxic effector phenotype in CD8 T cells and highlight the therapeutic potential of targeting 5-HT_2A for HCC immunotherapy.