PIKfyve inhibition induces antitumor immunogenicity by attenuating STING trafficking and lysosomal degradation.

Abstract

Significant progress in the application of immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) for the treatment of multiple types of cancers has been achieved, but its overall response rate and therapeutic efficacy remain unsatisfactory. To address these limitations, the identification of a combinational approach to enhance the therapeutic efficacy of ICB is needed. The activation of cyclic GMP-AMP synthase-stimulator of interferon genes (cGAS-STING) signaling is critical to the induction of antitumor innate immune responses and is a promising target for the development of combinational immunotherapy. Here, through the Connectivity Map database and a kinase inhibitor library screen using interferon-stimulated genes (ISGs) as a functional readout, we identified PIKfyve as a negative regulator of cGAS-STING signaling. The inhibition of PIKfyve by the kinase inhibitor YM201636, or genetic ablation elicited the expression of ISGs downstream of cGAS-STING and reshapes the antitumor microenvironment by recruiting CD8+ T lymphocytes. In melanoma models, PIKfyve inhibition conferred sensitivity to the combinational therapy of cisplatin and anti-PD1, which lead to a durable treatment response. Depletion of Sting or CD8+ T cells in B16F10 tumor significantly weakened the synergistic effect of PIKfyve inhibition and cisplatin. Mechanistically, PIKfyve interacts with STING to facilitate its trafficking from endosome to lysosome for degradation, thereby suppressing the STING-signaling mediated antitumor activity. These results highlight the importance of maintaining STING signaling as a direction to augment the efficacies of combinational immunotherapies.