Niclosamide improves cancer immunotherapy by modulating RNA-binding protein HuR-mediated PD-L1 signaling

BACKGROUND: Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) represents a revolutionary advance in cancer treatment but remains limited success in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). Here we aim to explore the mechanism of RNA-binding protein (RBP) HuR in cancer immune evasion by post-transcriptionally regulating PD-L1 and evaluate the potential of HuR inhibition to improve immune response. METHODS: The binding between HuR and PD-L1 mRNA was determined by ribonucleoprotein immunoprecipitation and RNA pull-down assays. The HuR knockout clones were established by CRISPR/Cas9 technology. The protein levels were assessed by Western blot, immunohistochemistry, and immunocytochemistry. The function and molecular mechanism of HuR-PD-L1 were determined by in vitro T cell activation and killing assay and in vivo efficacy assay. RESULTS: We found that HuR directly bound to and stabilized PD-L1 mRNA. Knocking out HuR reduced PD-L1 levels and promoted T cell activation. We discovered that niclosamide reduced PD-L1 by inhibiting HuR cytoplasmic translocation, and diminished glycosylation of PD-L1. Niclosamide enhanced T cell-mediated killing of cancer cells and significantly improved the efficacy of anti-PD-1 immunotherapy in two syngeneic animal tumor models. CONCLUSION: We identified HuR as a novel posttranscriptional regulator of PD-L1, which plays an important role in tumor immune evasion. Niclosamide might be a promising repurposed drug to improve the patient response to immunotherapy by targeting HuR-PD-L1 axis. Our study demonstrates a novel strategy for targeting HuR/PD-L1 and provides the first proof-of-principle for repurposing niclosamide as a HuR inhibitor to overcome cancer immune evasion and improve response to ICB immunotherapy. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13578-023-01137-w.