Project description:Whole Genome Sequencing of the murine breast cancer cell line 4T1 and of the murine melanoma cell line B16-ova was carried out with the aim of identifying somatic mutations. We also ran deep Mass Spectrometry proteomics analysis on the same cell lines, aiming to determine which somatic mutations carry over to the protein expression level. Further, we tested these cancer specific protein epitopes (putative neoantigens) for immunogenicity using mouse models. Finally, the putative neoantigens that showed good immunogenic potential were used in tumor growth control experiments with mice engrafted with the two tumor cell lines. In these experiments we tested whether cancer vaccines based on individual neoantigen peptides (MHC-I) restricted the growth of the tumor compared to adequate controls. The overall aim of the project is to validate the ability of our multi-omics/bioinformatics pipeline to identify and deliver neoantigens that can be used to suppress tumor growth. File names Sample names P10859_101_S1_L001_R1_001_BHKWV3CCXY 4T1_S1_L001_R1_001_BHKWV3CCXY P10859_101_S1_L001_R2_001_BHKWV3CCXY 4T1_S1_L001_R2_001_BHKWV3CCXY P10859_101_S1_L002_R1_001_BHKWV3CCXY 4T1_S1_L002_R1_001_BHKWV3CCXY P10859_101_S1_L002_R2_001_BHKWV3CCXY 4T1_S1_L002_R2_001_BHKWV3CCXY P10859_102_S2_L003_R1_001_BHKWV3CCXY B16-OVA_S2_L003_R1_001_BHKWV3CCXY P10859_102_S2_L003_R2_001_BHKWV3CCXY B16-OVA_S2_L003_R2_001_BHKWV3CCXY P10859_102_S2_L004_R1_001_BHKWV3CCXY B16-OVA_S2_L004_R1_001_BHKWV3CCXY P10859_102_S2_L004_R2_001_BHKWV3CCXY B16-OVA_S2_L004_R2_001_BHKWV3CCXY
Project description:Immunotherapies targeting cancer-specific immunogenic neoantigens have revolutionized the treatment of cancer patients. Recent evidence suggests that epigenetic therapies could synergize with immunotherapies, mediating the de-repression of endogenous retroviral element (ERV)-encoded promoters, and the initiation of transcription. Here we use RNA sequencing from cancer cells treated with DNMT and/or HDAC inhibitors, to assemble a de novo transcriptome and identified 3,023 ERV-derived, treatment-induced novel polA+ transcripts (TINPATs), encoding for 61,426 novel open reading frames. We further demonstrate, using human leukocyte antigen immunopeptidomics, the existence of treatment-induced neoepitopes (t-neoepitopes) derived from TINPATs. We demonstrated the potential of the identified t-neoepitopes to elicit an immunogenic T-cell response and cancer cell killing. The presence of t-neoepitopes was further verified in AML patient samples 48 h and /96 h after in vivo treatment with the DNMT inhibitor Decitabine. Our findings highlight a novel mechanism of ERV-derived neoantigens in epigenetic and immune therapies.
Project description:This is an open-label, non-randomised FIH trial investigating the safety and tolerability of a novel ATMP, pTTL, composed of autologous tumour-draining lymph node-derived T cells stimulated in vitro with personalised cancer neoantigens.
The neoantigens are selected through a process starting with next generation sequencing (NGS) of tumour material from the patient followed by selection of neoantigenic mutations using an in-house software, PIOR. Selected neoantigen epitopes are expressed as recombinant proteins, NAG, and used to stimulate T cells to promote neoantigen-specific T cell expansion in vitro in pTTL production.
pTTL is thus based on autologous cells stimulated with patient-specific neoantigens. In consequence, every pTTL product is unique and designated for use in one single individual.
pTTL will be administered to patients with stage IV colorectal cancer (CRC) as a single intravenous dose.
Project description:Here, we used an unbiased, functional target-discovery platform to identify immunogenic proteins from primary non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells that had been induced to apoptosis by cisplatin (CDDP) treatment in vitro, as compared with their live counterparts. Among the multitude of proteins identified, some of them were represented as fragmented proteins in apoptotic tumor cells, and acted as non-mutated neoantigens. Only the fragmented proteins elicited effective multi-specific T cell responses, upon a chemotherapy protocol including CDDP. Importantly, these responses further increased significantly upon anti-PD-1 therapy, and correlated with patients’ survival and decreased PD-1 expression.
Project description:Syngeneic grafts of the D4M.3A.3 (parental) mouse melanoma cell line (derived from a Tyr::CreER;BrafCA;Ptenlox/lox mouse) in C56BL/6 mice model poorly immunogenic, low neoantigen human melanomas. The D3UV2 (UV2) cell line was derived by serial UVB irradiation and single cell cloning. The addition of UVB-induced putative neoantigens sensitizes UV2 syngeneic melanoma grafts to immune checkpoint inhibitors and triggers epitope skewing to tumor-lineage self-antigens, a phenomenon that can be successfully mimicked in parental melanomas through treatment combinations such as anti-PD-1 with ablative fractional photothermolysis and imiquimod. Our mouse models were used to characterize gene expression changes between neoantigen rich and neoantigen poor melanomas, and with immunotherapy.
Project description:Although mutations in DNA are the best-studied source of neoantigens that determine response to immune checkpoint blockade, alterations in RNA splicing within cancer cells could similarly result in neoepitope production. However, the endogenous antigenicity and clinical potential of such splicing-derived epitopes have not been tested. Here, we demonstrate that pharmacologic modulation of splicing via specific drug classes generates bona fide neoantigens and elicits anti-tumor immunity, augmenting checkpoint immunotherapy. Splicing modulation inhibited tumor growth and enhanced checkpoint blockade in a manner dependent on host T cells and peptides presented on tumor MHC class I. Splicing modulation induced stereotyped splicing changes across tumor types, altering the MHC I-bound immunopeptidome to yield splicing-derived neoepitopes that trigger an anti-tumor T cell response in vivo. These data definitively identify splicing modulation as an untapped source of immunogenic peptides and provide a means to enhance response to checkpoint blockade that is readily translatable to the clinic.
Project description:Effective anti-cancer immunity is associated with the presence of T cells directed at potentially immunogenic tumor neoantigens arising from tumor-specific mutation. We confirmed the expression of reported MC38 neoantigens (Nature 515: 572, 2014). MC38 cells in our laboratory had the same point mutation at amino acid position 299 in Adpgk (ASMTN[R/M]ELM), but did not have a point mutation at amino acid position 42 in Reps1 (AQL[P/A]NDVVL). The allele frequency of mutated Adpgk (ASMTNMELM) was 30%.
Project description:Neoantigen discovery in pediatric brain tumors is hampered by their low mutational burden and scant tissue availability. We developed a low-input proteogenomic approach combining tumor DNA/RNA sequencing and mass spectrometry proteomics to identify tumor-restricted (neoantigen) peptides arising from multiple genomic aberrations to generate a highly target-specific, autologous, personalized T cell immunotherapy. Our data indicate that novel splice junctions are the primary source of neoantigens in medulloblastoma, a common pediatric brain tumor. Proteogenomically identified tumor-specific peptides are immunogenic and generate MHC II-based T cell responses. Moreover, polyclonal and polyfunctional T cells specific for tumor-specific peptides effectively eliminated tumor cells in vitro. Targeting novel tumor-specific antigens obviates the issue of central immune tolerance while potentially providing a safety margin favoring combination with other immune-activating therapies. These findings demonstrate the proteogenomic discovery of immunogenic tumor-specific peptides and lay the groundwork for personalized targeted T cell therapies for children with brain tumors.
Project description:Objectives:
In this Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre (RUNMC) initiated study our first objective is to investigate toxicity (safety and feasibility) of vaccination with frameshift-derived neoantigen-loaded DC of CRC patients with an MSI-positive CRC and persons who are known to be carrier of a germline MMR-gene mutation with no signs of disease yet.
The secondary objectives of the study are:
* to demonstrate that peptide-loaded DC can induce or enhance an immune response to tumor-associated antigen CEA and specific frameshift-derived neoantigens in the study population.
* to study the pathological and clinical responses, e.g. disease-free survival, determined according to the standard protocol.
Study design:
This study is a phase I/II open-label study.
Study population:
Two groups of adults will be vaccinated:
Group I) CRC patients, who are known to carry a germline MMR-gene mutation and patients with an MSI-positive CRC and yet unknown or negative MMR-gene mutation status.
Group II) persons who are known to be carrier of a germline MMR-gene mutation with no signs of disease yet. All participants need to be HLA-A2.1 positive.
Project description:Although irradiated induced-pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) as a prophylactic cancer vaccine elicit an antitumor immune response, the therapeutic efficacy of iPSC-based cancer vaccines is not promising due to their insufficient antigenicity and the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. Here, we found that neoantigen-engineered iPSC cancer vaccines can trigger neoantigen-specific T cell responses to eradicate cancer cells and increase the therapeutic efficacy of RT in poorly immunogenic colorectal cancer (CRC) and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). We generated neoantigen-augmented iPSCs (NA-iPSCs) by engineering AAV2 vector carrying murine neoantigens and evaluated their therapeutic efficacy in combination with radiotherapy. After administration of NA-iPSC cancer vaccine and radiotherapy, we found that ~60% of tumor-bearing mice achieved a complete response in microsatellite-stable CRC model. Furthermore, splenocytes from mice treated with NA-iPSC plus RT produced high levels of IFN secretion in response to neoantigens and had a greater cytotoxicity to cancer cells, suggesting that the NA-iPSC vaccine combined with radiotherapy elicited a superior neoantigen-specific T-cell response to eradicate cancer cells. The superior therapeutic efficacy of NA-iPSCs engineered by mouse TNBC neoantigens was also observed in the syngeneic immunocompetent TNBC mouse model. We found that the risk of spontaneous lung and liver metastasis was dramatically decreased by NA-iPSCs plus RT in the TNBC animal model. Altogether, these results indicated that autologous iPSC cancer vaccines engineered by neoantigens can elicit a high neoantigen-specific T-cell response, promote tumor regression and reduce the risk of distant metastasis in combination with local radiotherapy.