Characterization of monocytes influence in human skin melanoma

Tumor cells attract and dynamically interact with monocytes/macrophages, one of the more abundant cell types in the tumor microenvironment, to subvert their differentiation into tumor associated macrophages (TAMs), which mainly promote immunosuppression and neoplastic progression, but the mechanisms governing their protumoral activity are not completely understood. Thus, identifying molecular pathways promoted by monocytes that could be responsible for immune evasion and tumor malignicity may provide new therapeutic targets to improve the efficacy of immunotherapy of cancer. Overall design: BLM and A375 human melanoma cell lines were coculture for 24h with CD14+ monocytes isolated from human PBMCs of three healthy donors. Also, CD14-CD3- tumor cells (TC) and CD3+ tumor infiltrated lymphocytes (TILs) were obtained skin melanoma primary tumors (CD14+ tumor-associated macrophages from the same tumors are available at GSE171277).