Liu YY, Ai JH, Zeng LM, Liu XN, Wu F. Gastric cancer-derived exosomal indoleamine 2,3 dioxygenase 1 drives immunosuppression in gastric cancer by suppressing dendritic cell maturation. World J Gastroenterol 2026; 32(28): 118939 [DOI: 10.3748/wjg.118939]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Fang Wu, MD, Doctor, Department of Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Jiangxi Medical College, Nanchang University, No. 1519 Dongyue Avenue, Nanchang 330000, Jiangxi Province, China. wf70601852@163.com
Research Domain of This Article
Oncology
Article-Type of This Article
research-article
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Liu YY, Ai JH, Zeng LM, Liu XN, Wu F. Gastric cancer-derived exosomal indoleamine 2,3 dioxygenase 1 drives immunosuppression in gastric cancer by suppressing dendritic cell maturation. World J Gastroenterol 2026; 32(28): 118939 [DOI: 10.3748/wjg.118939]
Yang-Yang Liu, Xue-Ni Liu, Fang Wu, Department of Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Jiangxi Medical College, Nanchang University, Nanchang 330000, Jiangxi Province, China
Jun-Hua Ai, Department of General Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital, Jiangxi Medical College, Nanchang University, Nanchang 330000, Jiangxi Province, China
Le-Ming Zeng, Department of Oncology, Taihe County Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jian 343700, Jiangxi Province, China
Co-first authors: Yang-Yang Liu and Jun-Hua Ai.
Author contributions: Liu YY and Ai JH have made equal contributions, including study design, data collection and analysis, and manuscript preparation as co-first authors; Zeng LM and Liu XN designed the experiments and conducted clinical data collection, performed postoperative follow-up and recorded the data; Liu YY, Ai JH and Zeng LM conducted the collation and statistical analysis, and wrote the original manuscript and revised the paper; Liu YY, Ai JH, Zeng LM, Liu XN, and Wu F read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by the General Project Funded by Jiangxi Provincial Natural Science Foundation, No. 20232BAB206095.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: The animal experiments was approved by the Ethics Committee of the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanchang University.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The authors have read the ARRIVE guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the ARRIVE guidelines.
Data sharing statement: All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.
Corresponding author: Fang Wu, MD, Doctor, Department of Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Jiangxi Medical College, Nanchang University, No. 1519 Dongyue Avenue, Nanchang 330000, Jiangxi Province, China. wf70601852@163.com
Received: February 3, 2026 Revised: March 10, 2026 Accepted: March 27, 2026 Published online: July 28, 2026 Processing time: 155 Days and 18.6 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: Gastric cancer-derived exosomal indoleamine 2,3 dioxygenase 1 (IDO1) suppresses dendritic cell (DC) maturation, thereby facilitating tumor immune evasion. This study demonstrates that IDO1 is upregulated in gastric cancer tissues and selectively enriched in tumor-derived exosomes. These IDO1-carrying exosomes are internalized by DCs, leading to downregulation of maturation markers (cluster of differentiation 80, cluster of differentiation 86, major histocompatibility complex class II) and an immunosuppressive cytokine shift (decreased interleukin-12p70, increased interleukin-10). Silencing IDO1 in exosomes reverses these effects and attenuates tumor growth in vivo. Our findings identify exosomal IDO1 as a key mediator of tumor-DC crosstalk and a promising therapeutic target in gastric cancer.
