Project description
Rearranging the tumour matrix for enhanced immunotherapy
Tumour cells are surrounded and supported by an underlying connective tissue known as fibrotic stroma. This stroma comprises various components, including cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) that produce extracellular matrix (ECM), influencing tumour biology, behaviour and response to therapy. The ERC-funded OpenMatrix project aims to address the negative impact of fibrotic stroma on immune cell recruitment and activation. The research team will identify and target this stroma-driving loop to normalise the perturbed ECM and enhance tumour accessibility for immune cells. By delineating CAF-ECM interactions, it will be possible to train tumour myeloid cells to alter the tumour ECM, reactivate the immune function and improve immunotherapy outcomes.
Objective
Immunotherapy can prolong lives of cancer patient subgroups, but fails in solid tumors with dense fibrotic stroma, such as pancreatic cancer. Fibrotic stroma prevents the recruitment and activation of immune effector cells, and, thereby dampens the efficacy of immunotherapy. Mechanistically, cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) initiate extracellular matrix (ECM) production, which aggravates fibrosis by reciprocal mechanoactivation and crosstalk with tumor-associated myeloid cells, forming a self-sustainable “pro-fibrotic loop”. However, the central pathways initiating this vicious cycle and signaling compensation maintaining fibrosis under therapeutic conditions remain unclear. Consequently, clinical solutions to disrupt this pro-fibrotic loop are lacking.
I hypothesize that identifying and targeting the multi-step pro-fibrotic loop can be exploited to re-engineer and normalize the perturbed ECM and increase tumor accessibility for immune effector cells and immunotherapy.
To disrupt the pro-fibrotic loop, I will exploit an engineered modular peptido-/nanobio-mimetic toolbox, comprising nature-inspired targeting systems based on in silico design and experimental validation. The peptidomimetics and nano-biomimetics will target cellular interaction mechanisms to (1) inhibit CAF–ECM interactions driving tissue stiffening and fibrosis, and (2) train tumor myeloid cells towards matrix-degrading effectors to restructure fibrotic ECM. These biomimetics will be examined in advanced 3D in vitro and in vivo pancreatic tumor models. The combined effects of biomimetics on the matrisome, matrix architecture and single-cell transcriptomics will be integrated using machine learning to identify ECM fingerprints. OpenMatrix will 1) deliver mechanistic insights into endogenous fibrosis drivers and antagonists, 2) engage these cell-intrinsic mechanisms to revert fibrosis and, thereby, 3) reactivate immune effector function and advance immunotherapy.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- medical and health sciencesclinical medicineoncology
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicineimmunologyimmunotherapy
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Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Topic(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
7522 NB Enschede
Netherlands