'Lymphatic vessels as immunomodulators in Cancer' - Seminar

Seminar by Prof. Stéphanie Hugues (PhD) - University of Geneva, Switzerland - , entitled 'Lymphatic vessels as immunomodulators in Cancer'.

During tumor progression, tumor-associated lymphatic endothelial cells (LECs) expand, and lymphatic drainage is increased in the tumor and draining lymph nodes. LECs are strongly modulated by inflammation or infections, reflecting a phenotypic and functional specialization of those cells depending on the organ and the immune microenvironment. Our data show that tumor LECs exert distinct immunoregulatory functions can be shaped by the tumor microenvironment (TME). Our lab is interested in the characterization of the tumor LEC transcriptome in distinct TMEs, and in the mapping of the immune landscape in lymphangiogenic tumors, combined or not to immunotherapies. We aim at deciphering how the targeting of molecules implicated in LEC-mediated immunomodulation impacts anti-tumor immunity, tumor growth and metastasis, in order to establish how the lymphatic endothelium in distinct TMEs can be a strategy for targeted immunotherapy.