Tumor-derived death receptor 6 modulates dendritic cell development

Studies in murine models of cancer as well as in cancer patients have demonstrated that the immune response to cancer is often compromised. This paradigm is viewed as one of the major mechanisms of tumor escape. Many therapies focus on employing the professional antigen presenting dendritic cells (DC) as a strategy to overcome immune inhibition in cancer patients. Death receptor 6 (DR6) is an orphan member of the tumor necrosis factor receptor superfamily (TNFRSF21). It is overexpressed on many tumor cells and DR6(-/-) mice display altered immunity. We investigated whether DR6 plays a role in tumorigenesis by negatively affecting the generation of anti-tumor activity. We show that DR6 is uniquely cleaved from the cell surface of tumor cell lines by the membrane-associated matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-14, which is often overexpressed on tumor cells and is associated with malignancy. We also demonstrate that > 50% of monocytes differentiating into DC die when the extracellular domain of DR6 is present. In addition, DR6 affects the cell surface phenotype of the resulting immature DC and changes their cytokine production upon stimulation with LPS/IFN-gamma. The effects of DR6 are mostly amended when these immature DC are matured with IL-1 beta/TNF-alpha, as measured by cell surface phenotype and their ability to present antigen. These results implicate MMP-14 and DR6 as a mechanism tumor cells can employ to actively escape detection by the immune system by affecting the generation of antigen presenting cells.