Immunomodulatory molecules in renal cell cancer: CD80 and CD86 are expressed on tumor cells

Despite modern therapies with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKI), the management of patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC) remains a challenge. Significant immunosuppression has been described in patients with mRCC. Therefore, immunotherapeutic strategies such as checkpoint inhibitors have been developed. To further elucidate the underlying mechanisms of immunosuppression and response to therapy, different features of the immune microenvironment (expression of HIF-1-α, VEGFR-1, FOXP3, TGF-ß1, CD80, CD86, PD-1, and PD-L1) were analyzed in tumor tissues within different subgroups of mRCC patients (responders vs. non-responders to therapy). Results: The most interesting finding was low-level CD80 and CD86-expression on tumor tissue samples (n = 18) of nearly all mRCC patients. This finding was in line with CD86 expression, which could also be found in renal carcinoma cell lines. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on CD80/CD86 expression in human renal cell carcinoma-possibly reflecting an immunomodulatory mechanism of the tumor.