Gene Center and Department of Biochemistry, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, Munich, Germany.
Department of Medicine III, University Hospital, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, Munich, Germany.
Front Immunol. 2020 Nov 12;11:602802. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.602802. eCollection 2020.
Conventional dendritic cell (DC) vaccine strategies, in which DCs are loaded with antigens , suffer biological issues such as impaired DC migration capacity and laborious GMP production procedures. In a promising alternative, antigens are targeted to DC-associated endocytic receptors with antibody-antigen conjugates co-administered with toll-like receptor (TLR) agonists as adjuvants. To combine the potential advantages of targeting of DCs with those of conjugated TLR agonists, we generated a multifunctional antibody construct integrating the DC-specific delivery of viral- or tumor-associated antigens and DC activation by TLR ligation in one molecule. We validated its functionality and determined if TLR ligation might improve the efficacy of such a molecule. In proof-of-principle studies, an αCD40 antibody containing a CMV pp65-derived peptide as an antigen domain (αCD40) was genetically fused to the TLR5-binding D0/D1 domain of bacterial flagellin (αCD40.Flg). The analysis of surface maturation markers on immature DCs revealed that fusion of flagellin to αCD40 highly increased DC maturation (3.4-fold elevation of CD80 expression compared to αCD40 alone) by specifically interacting with TLR5. Immature DCs loaded with αCD40.Flg induced significantly higher CMV-specific T cell activation and proliferation compared to αCD40 in co-culture experiments with allogeneic and autologous T cells (1.8-fold increase in % IFN-γ/TNF-α CD8 T cells and 3.9-fold increase in % CMV-specific dextramer CD8 T cells). More importantly, we confirmed the beneficial effects of flagellin-dependent DC stimulation using a tumor-specific neoantigen as the antigen domain. Specifically, the acute myeloid leukemia (AML)-specific mutated NPM1 (mNPM1)-derived neoantigen CLAVEEVSL was delivered to DCs in the form of αCD40 and αCD40.Flg antibody constructs, making this study the first to investigate mNPM1 in a DC vaccination context. Again, αCD40.Flg-loaded DCs more potently activated allogeneic mNPM1-specific T cells compared to αCD40. These results confirmed the functionality of our multifunctional antibody construct and demonstrated that TLR5 ligation improved the efficacy of the molecule. Future mouse studies are required to examine the T cell-activating potential of αCD40.Flg after targeting of dendritic cells using AML xenograft models.
传统的树突状细胞 (DC) 疫苗策略,即将 DC 加载抗原,存在诸如 DC 迁移能力受损和繁琐的 GMP 生产工艺等生物学问题。在一种有前途的替代方案中,抗原被靶向到 DC 相关的内吞受体,并用抗体-抗原缀合物与 Toll 样受体 (TLR) 激动剂一起作为佐剂进行共给药。为了将 DC 靶向的潜在优势与共轭 TLR 激动剂的优势结合起来,我们生成了一种多功能抗体构建体,将病毒或肿瘤相关抗原的 DC 特异性递呈和 TLR 连接激活 DC 整合到一个分子中。我们验证了其功能,并确定 TLR 连接是否可以提高此类分子的功效。在原理验证研究中,一种包含 CMV pp65 衍生肽作为抗原结构域的 αCD40 抗体(αCD40)在遗传上融合到细菌鞭毛的 TLR5 结合 D0/D1 结构域(αCD40.Flg)。对未成熟 DC 表面成熟标志物的分析表明,flagellin 与 αCD40 的融合通过与 TLR5 特异性相互作用,极大地增加了 DC 的成熟度(与单独的 αCD40 相比,CD80 表达增加了 3.4 倍)。在与同种异体和自体 T 细胞的共培养实验中,负载 αCD40.Flg 的未成熟 DC 诱导的 CMV 特异性 T 细胞激活和增殖明显高于 αCD40(IFN-γ/TNF-α CD8 T 细胞增加 1.8 倍,CMV 特异性 dextramer CD8 T 细胞增加 3.9 倍)。更重要的是,我们使用肿瘤特异性新抗原作为抗原结构域证实了依赖于 flagellin 的 DC 刺激的有益效果。具体而言,急性髓系白血病 (AML) 特异性突变 NPM1 (mNPM1) 衍生的新抗原 CLAVEEVSL 以 αCD40 和 αCD40.Flg 抗体构建体的形式递送至 DC,这使得本研究首次在 DC 疫苗背景下研究 mNPM1。同样,与 αCD40 相比,负载 αCD40.Flg 的 DC 更有效地激活同种异体 mNPM1 特异性 T 细胞。这些结果证实了我们多功能抗体构建体的功能,并表明 TLR5 连接提高了该分子的功效。需要使用 AML 异种移植模型进行未来的小鼠研究,以检查靶向树突状细胞后 αCD40.Flg 的 T 细胞激活潜力。
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