KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The study aimed to investigate the impact of thermal ablation on the plasma microenvironment in patients with NSCLC.
- Researchers noticed that thermal ablation enhances anti-tumor immunity in NSCLC through changes in the plasma microenvironment.
Thermal ablation is a minimally invasive treatment for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Aside from causing an immediate direct tumor cell injury, the effects of thermal ablation on the internal microenvironment are unknown.
Xinglu Zhang and the team aimed to investigate the effects of thermal ablation on the plasma internal environment in patients with NSCLC.
They performed an inclusive analysis of 128 plasma samples collected from 48 patients with NSCLC (pre-ablation [LC] and post-ablation [LC-T]) and 32 healthy controls (HCs). They employed Olink proteomics and metabolomics to construct an integrated landscape of cancer-related immune and inflammatory responses following thermal ablation.
About 58 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs) and 479 differentially expressed metabolites (DEMs) were observed in patients with LC compared with HCs, which might participate in tumor progression and metastasis. Among the HC, LC, and LC-T groups, 75 DEPs were identified, with 48 highly expressed DEPs (e.g., programmed death-ligand 1 [PD-L1]) in the LC group found to be downregulated after thermal ablation.
These DEPs significantly impacted pathways such as angiogenesis, immune checkpoint blockade, and pro-tumor chemotaxis. Metabolites involved in tumor cell survival were linked to these proteins at both expression and functional levels.
Conversely, 19 elevated proteins (e.g., interleukin [IL]-6) were identified post-ablation, primarily associated with inflammatory response pathways (NF-κB signaling and tumor necrosis factor signaling) and immune cell activation.
The study concluded that thermal ablation-induced changes in the host plasma microenvironment contribute to anti-tumor immunity in NSCLC, offering new insights into combining tumor ablation with immunotherapy.
This study was funded by the Beijing Research Ward Demonstration Construction Project.
Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39143582/
Chinese Clinical Trial: https://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.html?proj=208664
Zhang X, Shao S, Song N, et al. (2024). “Integrated omics characterization reveals reduced cancer indicators and elevated inflammatory factors after thermal ablation in non-small cell lung cancer patients.” Respir Res. 2024 Aug 14;25(1):309. doi: 10.1186/s12931-024-02917-9. PMID: 39143582; PMCID: PMC11325606.
