Immunotherapy targeting T-cell inhibitory receptors, namely programmed cell death-1 (PD-1) and/or cytotoxic T-lymphocyte associated protein-4 (CTLA-4), leads to durable responses in a proportion of patients with advanced metastatic
melanoma. Combination
immunotherapy results in higher rates of response compared to anti-PD-1 monotherapy, at the expense of higher toxicity. Currently, there are no robust molecular
biomarkers for the selection of first-line
immunotherapy. We used flow cytometry to profile pretreatment
tumor biopsies from 36
melanoma patients treated with anti-PD-1 or combination (anti-PD-1 plus anti-CTLA-4)
immunotherapy. A novel quantitative score was developed to determine the
tumor cell expression of
antigen-presenting MHC class I (
MHC-I) molecules, and to correlate expression data with treatment response.
Melanoma MHC-I expression was intact in all
tumors derived from patients who demonstrated durable response to anti-PD-1 monotherapy. In contrast,
melanoma MHC-I expression was low in 67% of
tumors derived from patients with durable response to combination
immunotherapy. Compared to MHC-I high
tumors, MHC-I low
tumors displayed reduced T-cell infiltration and a myeloid cell-enriched microenvironment. Our data emphasize the importance of robust MHC-I expression for anti-PD-1 monotherapy response and provide a rationale for the selection of combination
immunotherapy as the first-line treatment in MHC-I low
melanoma.