Dendritic cells enhance polyfunctionality of adoptively transferred T cells which target cytomegalovirus in glioblastoma.

Dendritic cells enhance polyfunctionality of adoptively transferred T cells which target cytomegalovirus in glioblastoma.

Cancer Res. 2017 Nov 01;:

Authors: Reap E, Suryadevara CM, Batich KA, Sanchez-Perez L, Archer GE, Schmittling RJ, Norberg PK, Herndon JE, Healy P, Congdon KL, Gedeon PC, Campbell OC, Swartz AM, Riccione KA, Yi JS, Hossain-Ibrahim MK, Saraswathula A, Nair SK, Dunn-Pirio AM, Broome TM, Weinhold KJ, Desjardins A, Vlahovic G, Mclendon R, Friedman AH, Friedman HS, Bigner DD, Fecci PE, Mitchell DA, Sampson JH

Abstract
Median survival for glioblastoma (GBM) remains <15 months. Human Cytomegalovirus (CMV) antigens have been identified in GBM but not normal brain, providing an unparalleled opportunity to subvert CMV antigens as tumor-specific immunotherapy targets. A recent trial in recurrent GBM patients demonstrated the potential clinical benefit of adoptive T cell therapy (ATCT) of CMV phosphoprotein 65 (pp65)-specific T cells. However, ex vivo analyses from this study found no change in the capacity of CMV pp65-specific T cells to gain multiple effector functions or polyfunctionality, which has been associated with superior antitumor efficacy. Previous studies have shown that dendritic cells (DC) could further enhance tumor-specific CD8+ T-cell polyfunctionality in vivo when administered as a vaccine. Therefore, we hypothesized that vaccination with CMV pp65 RNA-loaded DC would enhance the frequency of polyfunctional CMV pp65-specific CD8+ T cells after ATCT. Here we report prospective results of a pilot trial in which 22 patients with newly-diagnosed GBM were initially enrolled of which 17 patients were randomized to receive CMV pp65-specific T cells with CMV-DC vaccination (CMV-ATCT-DC) or saline (CMV-ATCT-Saline). Patients who received CMV-ATCT-DC vaccination experienced a significant increase in the overall frequencies of IFNγ+, TNFα+, and CCL3+ polyfunctional, CMV-specific CD8+ T cells. These increases in polyfunctional CMV-specific CD8+ T cells correlated with overall survival, although we cannot conclude this was causally related. Our data implicate polyfunctional T-cell responses as a potential biomarker for effective antitumor immunotherapy and support a formal assessment of this combination approach in a larger randomized study.

PMID: 29093005 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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