Article a VIDI grant (09150172010068) from the NWO/ZonMw and by the EMBO Young Investigator Program (project number 5868). M.M. is supported by AMED-CREST 25gm2110005 from the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development. Competing interests J.H., M.U., A.Z.L., L.-F.L. and K.V.L. are current employees of Apeximmune Therapeutics. X.J. and K.L. are former employees of Apeximmune Therapeutics. Treatment of disease, including cancer, using PLA2G2D antibodies as well as anti-PLA2G2D constructs and the use thereof are covered by multiple patents assigned to Apeximmune Therapeutics. The remaining authors declare no competing interests. Additional information Supplementary information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10954-1. Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to Li-Fen Lee, Kan V. Lu, Ralph Stadhouders or Floris Dammeijer. Peer review information Nature thanks Grégory Verdeil, Pandurangan Vijayanand and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Peer reviewer reports are available. Reprints and permissions information is available at http://www.nature.com/reprints.