Characterising the immune environment in metastatic niches in ovarian cancer

Sidahmed, Heba Awad Mohammed ORCID: 0000-0002-7211-0159 (2024). Characterising the immune environment in metastatic niches in ovarian cancer. University of Birmingham. M.Sc.

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Abstract

Ovarian cancer (OvCa) continues to be a clinical challenge, with patients often presenting at late stage, and with a high occurrence of relapse and chemoresistance. The tumour microenvironment (TME) of the sites of metastasis in the omentum consists of a complex system of stromal, mesothelial, endothelial, and immune cells that echo the structure of secondary lymphoid organs and facilitate tumour spread and disease progression. This study aims to characterise the stromal cells in the TME, and further elucidate the immune-stromal interactions within the ovarian metastasis TME using C57BL/6J, DARE and IL-33 reporter murine models and human patient samples. Flow cytometry and Multiplex immunofluorescent microscopy were utilised in this study. PDPN-CD31- stromal populations expressing low amounts of FAP and CD140a are potential cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) that may be involved in the direct progression of metastasis. There was also an increase in M1/M2 macrophages and cDC2 dendritic cells in metastatic omentum when compared to healthy omentum, parallel to an increase in cDC2 cells in DARE mice compared to the WT, which leads us to conclude that there is an increased immune activity within metastatic FALCs prior to chemotherapy, however more studies need to be conducted to determine if this activity is anti- or pro- high grade serous OvCa (HGSOC) tumoural proliferation.

Type of Work:	Thesis (Masters by Research > M.Sc.)
Award Type:	Masters by Research > M.Sc.
Supervisor(s):	Supervisor(s) Email ORCID Caamaňo, Jorge UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0003-3530-7056 Withers, David UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0003-3757-7594 Leung, Elaine UNSPECIFIED orcid.org/0000-0001-9748-7270
Licence:	All rights reserved
College/Faculty:	Colleges (former) > College of Medical & Dental Sciences
School or Department:	Institute of Immunology and Immunotherapy
Funders:	None/not applicable
Subjects:	Q Science > QR Microbiology > QR180 Immunology R Medicine > RC Internal medicine > RC0254 Neoplasms. Tumors. Oncology (including Cancer)
URI:	http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/15369

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