The influence of age and sex on the pre-treatment immune microenvironment of a carcinogen induced murine model of bladder cancer

Abstract

The incidence of urothelial carcinoma of the bladder is four times higher in males than females; however, females tend to present with a more aggressive disease, a poorer response to immunotherapy and suffer worse clinical outcomes. Recent findings have demonstrated sexual dimorphism in the tumor immune microenvironment of non-muscle invasive bladder cancer and associated clinical outcomes. However, a significant gap in knowledge remains with respect to the current pre-clinical modeling approaches and more precisely recapitulating these differences towards improved therapeutic design. Based on the similarities in mucosal immune physiology between humans and mice, we evaluated the sex and age-related immune alterations in healthy murine bladders. Bulk-RNA sequencing and multiplex immunofluorescence based spatial immune profiling of healthy murine bladders from male and female mice of age groups spanning young to old showed a highly altered immune landscape that exhibited sex and age associated differences, particularly in the context of B cell associated responses. Spatial profiling using markers specific to macrophages, T lymphocytes, B lymphocytes, activated dendritic cells, high endothelial venules, myeloid cells and the PD-L1 immune checkpoint showed sex and age associated differences. Bladders from healthy older female mice showed a higher number of tertiary lymphoid structures (TLSs) compared to both young female and male equivalents. Spatial immune profiling of N-butyl-N-(4-hydroxybutyl) nitrosamine (BBN) carcinogen exposed male and female bladders from young and old mice revealed a similar frequency of TLS formation, sex differences in the bladder immune microenvironment and, age differences in latency of tumor induction. These findings support the incorporation of sex and age as factors in pre-clinical modeling of NMIBC and will potentially advance the field of immunotherapeutic drug development to improve clinical outcomes in NMIBC.