Salome Stierli

Metastatic disease is a major cause of death for patients with melanoma. Melanoma cells can become metastatic not only due to cell-intrinsic plasticity but also due to cancer-induced protumorigenic remodeling of the immune microenvironment. Here, we report that innate immune surveillance by natural killer (NK) cells is bypassed by human melanoma cells expressing the stem cell marker NGFR. Using in vitro and in vivo cytotoxic assays, we show that NGFR protects melanoma cells from NK cell–mediated killing and, furthermore, boosts metastasis formation in a mouse model with adoptively transferred human NK cells. Mechanistically, NGFR leads to down-regulation of NK cell activating ligands and simultaneous up-regulation of the fatty acid stearoyl–coenzyme A desaturase (SCD) in melanoma cells. Notably, pharmacological and small interfering RNA–mediated inhibition of SCD reverted NGFR-induced NK cell evasion in vitro and in vivo. Hence, NGFR orchestrates immune control antagonizing pathways to protect melanoma cells from NK cell clearance, which ultimately favors metastatic disease.