1 The role of the immune checkpoint modulator OX40 and its ligand in NK cell 2 immunosurveillance and acute myeloid leukemia 3 Running title: OX40-OX40L in NK cell immunosurveillance 4 Keywords: OX40, AML, NK cells, immunotherapy, checkpoint 5 Tina Nuebling*1, Carla Emilia Schumacher*1,2, Martin Hofmann3, Ilona Hagelstein1, Benjamin Joachim 6 Schmiedel1, Stefanie Maurer1, Birgit, Federmann4, Kathrin Rothfelder1, Malte Roerden2, Daniela Dörfel1,2, 7 Pascal Schneider5, Gundram Jung3, Helmut Rainer Salih1,2 8 1 9 Clinical Collaboration Unit Translational Immunology, German Cancer Consortium (DKTK) and German 10 Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany 2 11 Department of Hematology and Oncology, Eberhard Karls University, Tuebingen, Germany 3 12 Department of Immunology, Eberhard Karls University, Tuebingen, Germany 13 4 Department of Pathology, Eberhard Karls University, Tuebingen, Germany 14 5 Department of Biochemistry, Epalinges, Switzerland 15 16 *these authors contributed equally to this work 17 18 Corresponding Author: 19 Helmut R. Salih, M.D. 20 Clinical Collaboration Unit Translational Immunology, German Cancer Consortium (DKTK) and German 21 Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) 22 Department of Hematology and Oncology, Eberhard Karls University 23 Otfried-Mueller Str. 10, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany 24 Phone: +49-7071-2983275; Fax: +49-7071-293671; Email:
[email protected] 25 26 Funding: Supported by grants from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (NU341/1-1, SA1360/7-3, 27 SFB685, project A07), Deutsche Krebshilfe (projects 111828 and 111134). PS is supported by grants from 28 the Swiss National Science Foundation. 29 Conflict-of-interest disclosure: The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest. 30 31 32 Text word count: 4347; Abstract word count: 238 33 5 figures, 2 tables, 4 supplementary figures 34 References: 50 1 35 Abstract 36 The TNF receptor family member OX40 promotes activation and proliferation of T cells, which 37 fuels present attempts to modulate this immune checkpoint to reinforce anti-tumor immunity.