Department of Chemistry, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA.
Cancer Immunology Laboratory, Department of Biomedicine, University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland.
Nat Chem Biol. 2020 Dec;16(12):1376-1384. doi: 10.1038/s41589-020-0622-x. Epub 2020 Aug 17.
Currently approved immune checkpoint inhibitor therapies targeting the PD-1 and CTLA-4 receptor pathways are powerful treatment options for certain cancers; however, most patients across cancer types still fail to respond. Consequently, there is interest in discovering and blocking alternative pathways that mediate immune suppression. One such mechanism is an upregulation of sialoglycans in malignancy, which has been recently shown to inhibit immune cell activation through multiple mechanisms and therefore represents a targetable glycoimmune checkpoint. Since these glycans are not canonically druggable, we designed an αHER2 antibody-sialidase conjugate that potently and selectively strips diverse sialoglycans from breast cancer cells. In syngeneic breast cancer models, desialylation enhanced immune cell infiltration and activation and prolonged the survival of mice, an effect that was dependent on expression of the Siglec-E checkpoint receptor found on tumor-infiltrating myeloid cells. Thus, antibody-sialidase conjugates represent a promising modality for glycoimmune checkpoint therapy.
目前,针对 PD-1 和 CTLA-4 受体通路的免疫检查点抑制剂疗法是某些癌症的有效治疗选择;然而,大多数癌症类型的患者仍然无法响应。因此,人们有兴趣发现并阻断介导免疫抑制的替代途径。一种这样的机制是恶性肿瘤中唾液酸糖蛋白的上调,最近已表明它通过多种机制抑制免疫细胞的激活,因此代表了一个可靶向的糖免疫检查点。由于这些糖不能常规地被药物化,我们设计了一种 αHER2 抗体-唾液酸酶偶联物,能够有效地选择性地从乳腺癌细胞中去除多种唾液酸糖蛋白。在同种异体乳腺癌模型中,去唾液酸化增强了免疫细胞的浸润和激活,并延长了小鼠的存活时间,这种作用依赖于肿瘤浸润髓样细胞上发现的 Siglec-E 检查点受体的表达。因此,抗体-唾液酸酶偶联物代表了糖免疫检查点治疗的一种有前途的方式。