Neutrophils drive endoplasmic reticulum stress-mediated apoptosis in cancer cells through arginase-1 release

Human neutrophils constitutively express high amounts of arginase-1, which depletes arginine from the surrounding medium and downregulates T-cell activation. Here, we have found that neutrophil arginase-1, released from activated human neutrophils or dead cells, induced apoptosis in cancer cells through an endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress pathway. Silencing of PERK in cancer cells prevented the induction of ER stress and apoptosis. Arginase inhibitor Nω-hydroxy-nor-arginine inhibited apoptosis and ER stress response induced by conditioned medium from activated neutrophils. A number of tumor cell lines, derived from different tissues, were sensitive to neutrophil arginase-1, with pancreatic, breast, ovarian and lung cancer cells showing the highest sensitivity. Neutrophil-released arginase-1 and arginine deprivation potentiated the antitumor action against pancreatic cancer cells of the ER-targeted antitumor alkylphospholipid analog edelfosine. Our study demonstrates the involvement of neutrophil arginase-1 in cancer cell killing and highlights the importance and complex role of neutrophils in tumor surveillance and biology.