Transcriptomic analysis of tumour-associated macrophages in wildtype and Colec11-/- mice

Collectin-11 (CL-11) is a recently described soluble C-type lectin, which has distinct roles in embryonic development, host defence, autoimmunity and fibrosis. Here we show that CL-11 also plays an important role in promoting melanoma growth. Colec11 deficient mice engrafted with B16 melanoma cells displayed significantly reduced tumour burden compared with WT mice. Cellular and molecular analyses showed that melanoma tumour in Colec11-/- mice had: i) lower levels of angiogenesis and tumour cell proliferation, ii) less immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment characterised by high lymphocyte to myeloid infiltrate ratio, increased infiltration of CD8+ T cells into the tumour core, high levels of anti-tumour cytokines/chemokines, reprogramming macrophages to M1 phenotype. Overall design: mRNA profiles of tumour-associated macrophages in wildtype and Colec11-/- mice