Durham Nicholas M, Mulgrew Kathy, McGlinchey Kelly, Monks Noel R, Ji Hong, Herbst Ronald, Suzich JoAnn, Hammond Scott A, Kelly Elizabeth J
MedImmune, LLC, One Medimmune Way, Gaithersburg, MD 20878, USA.
MedImmune, LLC, One Medimmune Way, Gaithersburg, MD 20878, USA.
Mol Ther. 2017 Aug 2;25(8):1917-1932. doi: 10.1016/j.ymthe.2017.05.006. Epub 2017 Jun 2.
Vesicular stomatitis virus encoding the IFNβ transgene (VSV-IFNβ) is a mediator of potent oncolytic activity and is undergoing clinical evaluation for the treatment of solid tumors. Emerging preclinical and clinical data suggest treatment of tumors with oncolytic viruses may sensitize tumors to checkpoint inhibitors and increase the anti-tumor immune response. New generations of immuno-oncology molecules including T cell agonists are entering clinical development and could be hypothesized to enhance the activity of oncolytic viruses, including VSV-IFNβ. Here, we show that VSV-IFNβ exhibits multiple mechanisms of action, including direct cell killing, stimulation of an innate immune response, recruitment of CD8 T cells, and depletion of T regulatory cells. Moreover, VSV-IFNβ promotes the establishment of a CD8 T cell response to endogenous tumor antigens. Our data demonstrate a significant enhancement of anti-tumor function for VSV-IFNβ when combined with checkpoint inhibitors, but not OX40 agonists. While the addition of checkpoint inhibitors to VSV-IFNβ generated robust tumor growth inhibition, it resulted in no increase in viral replication, transgene expression, or immunophenotypic changes beyond treatment with VSV-IFNβ alone. We hypothesize that tumor-specific T cells generated by VSV-IFNβ retain activity due to a lack of immune exhaustion when checkpoint inhibitors were used.
编码IFNβ转基因的水疱性口炎病毒(VSV-IFNβ)是一种有效的溶瘤活性介质,目前正在接受实体瘤治疗的临床评估。新出现的临床前和临床数据表明,用溶瘤病毒治疗肿瘤可能会使肿瘤对检查点抑制剂敏感,并增强抗肿瘤免疫反应。包括T细胞激动剂在内的新一代免疫肿瘤学分子正在进入临床开发阶段,可以推测它们会增强包括VSV-IFNβ在内的溶瘤病毒的活性。在此,我们表明VSV-IFNβ具有多种作用机制,包括直接细胞杀伤、刺激先天免疫反应、招募CD8 T细胞以及消耗调节性T细胞。此外,VSV-IFNβ促进对内源性肿瘤抗原产生CD8 T细胞反应。我们的数据表明,VSV-IFNβ与检查点抑制剂联合使用时,抗肿瘤功能显著增强,但与OX40激动剂联合使用时则不然。虽然在VSV-IFNβ中添加检查点抑制剂可产生强大的肿瘤生长抑制作用,但与单独使用VSV-IFNβ治疗相比,它并未导致病毒复制、转基因表达或免疫表型变化增加。我们推测,当使用检查点抑制剂时,VSV-IFNβ产生的肿瘤特异性T细胞由于缺乏免疫耗竭而保留活性。