Refractoriness of STING therapy is relieved by AKT inhibitor through effective vascular disruption in tumour

Abstract

Stimulator of interferon genes (STING) promotes anti-tumour immunity by linking innate and adaptive immunity, but it remains unclear how intratumoural treatment with STING agonists yields anti-tumour effects. Here we demonstrate that intratumoural injection of the STING agonist cGAMP induces strong, rapid, and selective apoptosis of tumour endothelial cells (ECs) in implanted LLC tumour, melanoma and breast tumour, but not in spontaneous breast cancer and melanoma. In both implanted and spontaneous tumours, cGAMP greatly increases TNFα from tumour-associated myeloid cells. However, compared to spontaneous tumour ECs, implanted tumour ECs are more vulnerable to TNFα-TNFR1 signalling-mediated apoptosis, which promotes effective anti-tumour activity. The spontaneous tumour’s refractoriness to cGAMP is abolished by co-treatment with AKT 1/2 inhibitor (AKTi). Combined treatment with cGAMP and AKTi induces extensive tumour EC apoptosis, leading to extensive tumour apoptosis and marked growth suppression of the spontaneous tumour. These findings propose an advanced avenue for treating primary tumours that are refractory to single STING agonist therapy. © 2021, The Author(s).