Impaired binding of perforin on the surface of tumor cells is a cause of target cell resistance against cytotoxic effector cells.

Exocytosis of perforin, subsequent binding of perforin to the target cell membrane, and formation of lytic pores form an important pathway involved in the induction of tumor cell death by cytotoxic effector cells. Here we describe a novel escape mechanism employed by tumor cells to protect themselves from granule-mediated cell death: We were able to demonstrate that the resistance of the human leukemia cell line ML-2 to natural killer (NK)-cell-mediated killing is not caused by impaired NK-cell activation but by resistance against effector molecules contained in the granules of cytotoxic cells. No resistance was observed against other pore-forming agents like complement and streptolysin O. By using the NK-susceptible leukemia cell line K562, we could show that the induction of cell death by cytotoxic granules can be blocked completely by anti-perforin antibodies, indicating that perforin is essentially involved in this process. Flow cytometric data revealed that an impaired binding of perforin on the tumor cell membrane is mainly responsible for target cell resistance, because perforin turned out to bind well on K562 cells but is not able to attach to the surface of ML-2 cells. After impaired binding of perforin was identified as a potential mechanism of tumor cell resistance, leukemia cells from 6 patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) were examined. As predicted, AML cells that failed to bind perforin on their surface demonstrated complete resistance toward NK-cell-mediated cytotoxicity. Thus, perforin resistance could represent an important tumor escape mechanism that should be considered when cytotoxic effector cells are used for cellular immunotherapy. (Blood. 2000;96:594-600)