Abstract

Metastasis is the main cause of cancer-related mortality. Despite intense efforts to understand the mechanisms underlying the metastatic process, treatment of metastatic cancer is still challenging. Here we describe a chemotherapy-induced, host-mediated mechanism that promotes remodeling of the extracellular matrix (ECM), ultimately facilitating cancer cell seeding and metastasis. Paclitaxel (PTX) chemotherapy enhanced rapid ECM remodeling and mechanostructural changes in the lungs of tumor-free mice, and the protein expression and activity of the ECM remodeling enzyme lysyl oxidase (LOX) increased in response to PTX. A chimeric mouse model harboring genetic LOX depletion revealed chemotherapy-induced ECM remodeling was mediated by CD8+ T cells expressing LOX. Consistently, adoptive transfer of CD8+ T cells, but not CD4+ T cells or B cells, from PTX-treated mice to naïve immunodeprived mice induced pulmonary ECM remodeling. Lastly, in a clinically relevant metastatic breast carcinoma model, LOX inhibition counteracted the metastasis-promoting, ECM-related effects of PTX. This study highlights the role of immune cells in regulating ECM and metastasis following chemotherapy, suggesting that inhibiting chemotherapy-induced ECM remodeling represents a potential therapeutic strategy for metastatic cancer.

Significance: Chemotherapy induces prometastatic pulmonary ECM remodeling by upregulating LOX in T cells, which can be targeted with LOX inhibitors to suppress metastasis.

Footnotes

Note: Supplementary data for this article are available at Cancer Research Online (http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/).

Cancer Res 2022;82:278–91

Received March 31, 2021.Revision received July 21, 2021.Accepted October 14, 2021.Published first October 19, 2021.©2021 The Authors; Published by the American Association for Cancer Research

This open access article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International (CC BY).