Food antigens suppress small intestinal tumorigenesis

Front Immunol. 2024 Sep 18:15:1373766. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2024.1373766. eCollection 2024.

Abstract

Food components suppressing small intestinal tumorigenesis are not well-defined partly because of the rarity of this tumor type compared to colorectal tumors. Using Apcmin/+ mice, a mouse model for intestinal tumorigenesis, and antigen-free diet, we report here that food antigens serve this function in the small intestine. By depleting Peyer's patches (PPs), immune inductive sites in the small intestine, we found that PPs have a role in the suppression of small intestinal tumors and are important for the induction of small intestinal T cells by food antigens. On the follicle-associated epithelium (FAE) of PPs, microfold (M) cells pass food antigens from lumen to the dendritic cells to induce T cells. Single-cell RNA-seq (scRNA-seq) analysis of immune cells in PPs revealed a significant impact of food antigens on the induction of the PP T cells and the antigen presentation capacity of dendritic cells. These data demonstrate the role of food antigens in the suppression of small intestinal tumorigenesis by PP-mediated immune cell induction.

Keywords: M cells; Peyer´s patches; T cells; dendritic cells (DC); food antigens; intestinal tumor; microfold cells; scRNA-seq analysis.

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Antigen Presentation / immunology
  • Antigens / immunology
  • Carcinogenesis / immunology
  • Dendritic Cells* / immunology
  • Disease Models, Animal
  • Food
  • Intestinal Neoplasms* / genetics
  • Intestinal Neoplasms* / immunology
  • Intestinal Neoplasms* / pathology
  • Intestine, Small* / immunology
  • Intestine, Small* / pathology
  • Mice
  • Mice, Inbred C57BL
  • Peyer's Patches* / immunology
  • T-Lymphocytes / immunology

Substances

  • Antigens

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study is funded in part by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (22H00452 to HO, 22H02293 to TK and 23K05077 to TS), Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists (21K15540 and 19K16788 to TS) from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) Moonshot Research & Development Program (JP22zf0127007 to HO),Takeda Science Foundation (TS) and Momofuku Ando Award Research Grant (HO).