Presentation description

CX3CL1 is a chemokine that attracts immune cells to the tumor microenvironment. When CX3CL1 is secreted, macrophages are attracted to the tumor site. Many of these macrophages become immunosuppressive, inhibiting the anti-tumor response by suppressing immune cells such as T cells and dendritic cells that are trying to fight the tumor. The Reeves Lab used CRISPR-Cas9 to knock CX3CL1 out of murine skin carcinomas. We then used immunohistochemistry (IHC) to stain T cells using a CD3e stain and dendritic cells using a CD11c stain. We analyzed images of stained knockout and wildtype CIT9 tumor samples using QuPath. Through our analysis, we concluded that knocking CX3CL1 out of murine skin carcinomas leads to an increased percentage of T cells and dendritic cells in CIT9 tumors, due to the decreased number of macrophages recruited to suppress those immune cells.