Modulating AP-1 enables CAR-T cells to establish an intratumoral PD-1 ⁺ Tcf1 ⁺ stem-like reservoir and overcomes resistance to PD-1 axis blockade

PD-1 ⁺ Tcf1 ⁺ stem-like cells are critical mediators of endogenous T cell responses to PD-1/PD-L1 blockade and are maintained by MHC-dependent interactions with professional antigen-presenting cells ( APCs ). Unlike conventional T cells, CAR-T cells are activated by intact antigen expressed on tumors, not by peptide/MHC expressed on APCs, restricting their activation to the hostile tumor microenvironment ( TME ) that may impair preservation of this critical stem-like subset. Indeed, in an autochthonous model of ROR1 ⁺ lung cancer that we developed, CAR-T cells targeting the tumor-associated antigen ROR1 were uniformly Tcf1 ⁺ prior to infusion but rapidly downregulated Tcf1 in vivo and became terminally exhausted, similar to observations in patients, resulting in faster attrition and no enhancement in response to PD-L1 blockade. We hypothesized that overexpression of AP-1 family transcription factors, which can regulate T cell exhaustion, could enable CAR-Ts to maintain this critical PD-1 ⁺ Tcf1 ⁺ subset within tumors independently of APCs and sensitize them to PD-1/PD-L1 blockade. Overexpression of the AP-1 TF c-Jun, but not BATF, improved preservation of PD-1 ⁺ Tcf1 ⁺ CAR-T cells within tumors in a cell-intrinsic manner that correlated with increased persistence deeper within tumors. Notably, c-Jun overexpression alone was insufficient to prevent CAR-T exhaustion in the lung TME, in contrast to prior work in xenograft models, with progressive CAR-T dysfunction correlated with PD-1-dependent downregulation of c-Jun. However, c-Jun overexpression dramatically sensitized CAR-Ts to PD-L1 blockade, which restored c-Jun levels in CAR-Ts, drove log-fold expansion of CAR-Ts within tumors, and induced nearly complete eradication of ROR1 ⁺ tumor in highly aggressive models of lung cancer. Altogether, our data show that combination with PD-L1 blockade is necessary to unleash the full potential of c-Jun-overexpressing CAR-T cells in aggressive solid tumors like lung cancer and suggest that strategies to enhance formation of intratumoral PD-1 ⁺ Tcf1 ⁺ reservoirs can overcome CAR-T resistance to PD-1 blockade.