Defective transcription elongation in a subset of cancers confers immunotherapy resistance

The nature and role of global transcriptional deregulations in cancers are not fully understood. We report that a large proportion of cancers have widespread defects in mRNA transcription elongation (TE). Cancers with TE defects (TE deff ) display spurious transcription and defective mRNA processing of genes characterized by long genomic length, poised promoters and inducible expression. Signaling pathways regulated by such genes, such as pro-inflammatory response pathways, are consistently suppressed in TE deff tumors. Remarkably, TE deff correlates with the poor response and outcome in immunotherapy, but not chemo- or targeted therapy, -treated renal cell carcinoma and metastatic melanoma patients. Forced pharmacologic or genetic induction of TE deff in tumor cells impairs pro-inflammatory response signaling, and imposes resistance to the innate and adaptive anti-tumor immune responses and checkpoint inhibitor therapy in vivo. Therefore, defective TE is a previously unknown mechanism of tumor immune resistance, and should be assessed in cancer patients undergoing immunotherapy. Transcription elongation (TE) is a key point of inducible gene expression regulation. Here, the authors report widespread TE defects (TE deff ) in a high proportion of cancers that correlate with poor immunotherapy response, highlighting TE defects as potential routes for immune resistance.