Immune dysfunction is one of the hallmarks of cancer and plays critical roles in immunotherapy resistance, but there is no serum biomarker that can be used to evaluate immune-dysfunction status of cancer patients. Here, we identified subtype-specific human endogenous retrovirus K102 envelope (HERV-K102-Env) with immunosuppressive activity in circulating blood as a novel serum immunosuppressive biomarker of cancer. We first generated monoclonal antibodies against K102-Env with high sensitivity and specificity, and we developed an ELISA assay to detect serum K102-Env. We then investigated whether K102-Env and K108-Env proteins are present in circulating blood of cancer patients. We found K108-Env proteins were present in serum of both patients with cancer and healthy individuals. In contrast, K102-Env markedly increased in patients with PDAC, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) compared with healthy controls. The positive rates of K102-Env were 34.00%, 39%, and 28.0% in PDAC, HCC, and NSCLC, respectively, whereas only 5.0% of healthy individuals had marginally increased K102-Env. In the sera of PDAC patients, K102-Env was 36.63-fold higher than that of healthy controls. K102-Env significantly upregulated PD-1/PD-L1 and c-Myc expression levels of T cells. Importantly, serum K102-Env levels correlated well with advanced cancers and tumor biomarkers CA19-9 and AFP. These findings indicate that circulating K102-Env protein is a novel serum biomarker for evaluating immunosuppressive status and disease stage of patients with cancer.
Keywords: HERV-K102; HML-2 subtype; cancer immunosuppression; endogenous retroviruses; serum biomarker.
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