Lipid Accumulation in Peripheral Blood Dendritic Cells and Anticancer Immunity in Patients with Lung Cancer

We studied the subsets of peripheral blood dendritic cells (DCs) and lipid accumulation in DCs to investigate the involvement of DCs in the decreased anticancer immunity of advanced lung cancer patients. We analyzed the population of DC subsets in peripheral blood using flow cytometry. We then determined lipid accumulation in the DCs using BODIPY 650/665, a fluorophore with an affinity for lipids. Compared with healthy controls, the number of DCs in the peripheral blood of treatment-naive cancer patients was significantly reduced. In patients with stage III + IV disease, the numbers of myeloid DCs (mDCs) and plasmacytoid DCs were also significantly reduced. Lipid accumulation in DCs evaluated based on the fluorescence intensity of BODIPY 650/665 was significantly higher in stage III + IV lung cancer patients than in the controls. In the subset analysis, the fluorescence was highest for mDCs. The intracellularly accumulated lipids were identified as triglycerides. A decreased mixed leukocyte reaction was observed in the mDCs from lung cancer patients compared with those from controls. Taken together, the results show that lung cancer patients have a notably decreased number of peripheral blood DCs and their function as antigen-presenting cells is decreased due to their high intracellular lipid accumulation. Thereby, anticancer immunity is suppressed.