The impact of environmental Oxygen content on Natural Killer Cell Immunotherapy

While some studies have assessed the impact of checkpoint signals and immunosuppressive cells on NK cells, the role of oxygen content, usually low within the TME, has not been thoroughly evaluated. In order to study this question, oxygen content and pressure was manipulated using an advanced incubator system (AVATAR control system from xcellbio) to model the tumor microenvironment (1% O2 and 0.3 or 2 PSI), the blood environment (12% O2 and 2 PSI), and the bone marrow compartment (5% O2 and 0.6 PSI). Our findings were controlled to a standard 5% CO2 incubator (20% oxygen). The effect of 24 hour, 3 day, and 7 day incubations in these conditions were then evaluated. While oxygen concentration did not seem to significantly impact NK cell survival, NK cell proliferation was markedly reduced at the 1% O2 (TME) and intermediately reduced at the 5% O2 (bone marrow) when compared to the 12% O2 (blood) and standard incubator conditions.

Thursday April 15, 2021, 9pm CET
Martin Felices PhD, University of Minnesota, Masonic Cancer center
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