Anti-PD-1/PD-L1 Therapy Triggers Cognitive Deficits and Anxiety-Like Behaviors Through Tumor-Initiated Neuroinflammatory Niches in Male Mice

Abstract

Checkpoint inhibitors are promising immunotherapy to treat cancer patients, but their cognitive impact has not been evaluated despite several neurological adverse events. We studied the impact of immune desert or inflamed cancers when combined with immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) anti-PD-1/anti-PD-L1 on mouse behaviors and brain immune cells infiltration/homeostasis, and neuroinflammation in male mice. We showed that systemic inflammation, brain-barriers permeability accompanying meningeal infiltration of peripheral macrophages and neuroinflammation as well as deficits in cognition or emotional reactivity, depending on immuno-inflammatory or immune-desert cancer type. Combined with cancers, anti-PD-1 and PD-L1 treatments exacerbated the decline in executive functions and hippocampal vascular inflammation. PD-L1 specifically relayed the infiltration of the T{gamma}{delta} lymphocytes subpopulation in choroid plexus and leptomeninges implicated, whose systemic neutralization counteracted anti-PDL1-induced cognitive deficits and anxiety in mice bearing immune-inflamed cancer. Our findings highlight new systemic biomarkers of cold or hot cancer, treated with anti-PD-1/anti-PDL-1, and associated with cognitive and emotional alterations in mice; guiding ways of intervention to secure the cancer curation and improve patients quality of life under ICI treatment. Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest. One Sentence SummaryImpact of cancer and checkpoint inhibitors on cognitive functions