{"doi":"10.3389/fonc.2023.1145724","title":"B cells as modulators of HPV+ oropharyngeal cancer in a preclinical model","abstract":"Among the different immune cells present within tumors, B cells also infiltrate human papillomavirus-positive (HPV+) oropharyngeal tumors. However, the role of B cells during programmed death-1 (PD-1) blockade in HPV+ oropharyngeal cancer needs to be better defined. By using the preclinical mouse model for HPV+ oropharyngeal cancer (named mEER), we characterized B cells within tumors and determined their functional role in vivo during PD-1 blockade. We determined that treatment naïve tongue-implanted tumors, which we have previously demonstrated to be sensitive to PD-1 blockade, contained high infiltration of CD8+ T cells and low infiltration of B cells whereas flank-implanted tumors, which are resistant to PD-1 blockade, contain a higher frequency of B cells compared to T cells. Moreover, B cell-deficient mice (µMt) and B cell-depleted mice showed a slower tumor growth rate compared to wild-type (WT) mice, and B cell deficiency increased CD8+ T cell infiltration in tumors. When we compared tongue tumor-bearing mice treated with anti-PD-1, we observed that tumors that responded to the therapy contained more T cells and B cells than the ones that did not respond. However, µMt mice treated with PD-1 blockade showed similar tumor growth rates to WT mice. Our data suggest that in untreated mice, B cells have a more pro-tumorigenic phenotype potentially affecting T cell infiltration in the tumors. In contrast, B cells are dispensable for PD-1 blockade efficacy. Mechanistic studies are needed to identify novel targets to promote the anti-tumorigenic function and/or suppress the immunosuppressive function of B cells in HPV+ oropharyngeal cancer.","journal":"Frontiers in Oncology","year":2023,"id":388025,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.952,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1157672,"name":"Kamila A. Andino del Valle","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1157673,"name":"Abelardo A. Pérez-Rosario","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1157674,"name":"Daniel L. Castañón Pereira","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":852069,"name":"Jennifer Díaz-Rivera","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1157675,"name":"Pamela A. Merheb-Finianos","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":503588,"name":"Stephanie Dorta‐Estremera","orcid":"0000-0003-4440-6806","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1157671,"name":"Jorge R. Galán-Ortíz","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":39,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:18:13.977537Z","pmid":"37035195","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}