van Amerongen Rosa A, Tuit Sander, Remst Dennis F G, Wouters Anne K, Siekman Sterre L, Hagedoorn Renate S, van der Steen Dirk M, Kester Michel G D, de Ru Arnoud H, van der Horst Geertje, Matsuda Masashi, Ishikawa Fumihiko, van Veelen Peter A, Falkenburg J H Frederik, Heemskerk Mirjam H M
Department of Hematology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, the Netherlands.
Center for Proteomics and Metabolomics, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, the Netherlands.
Cancer Immunol Res. 2025 Aug 1;13(8):1145-1159. doi: 10.1158/2326-6066.CIR-24-0119.
The efficacy of most immunotherapies for prostate cancer is limited by poor tumor immunogenicity as evidenced by minimal T-cell infiltration. Treatment with T cells engineered to express T-cell receptors (TCR) targeting prostate-specific antigens offers a potential solution by bypassing endogenous T-cell repertoire limitations. Through differential gene expression analysis, we have identified kallikrein-related peptidases 2, 3, and 4 (KLK2, KLK3, and KLK4) and homeobox B13 (HOXB13) as strictly prostate lineage-specific genes with high expression in prostate cancer and no expression in healthy tissues of risk. Naturally processed peptides derived from these antigens were identified, enabling T-cell enrichment using peptide-MHC multimers. High-avidity T cells targeting these antigens were isolated from allogeneic HLA-mismatched donors. After screening for on-target tumor specificity and absence of off-target reactivity, TCRs recognizing KLK4 in HLA-A02:01 and KLK3 in HLA-B35:01 were sequenced and further tested. TCRs were expressed in T cells through TCR gene transfer and TCRs with best performance were selected. Using combinatorial peptide library scanning, the cross-reactive potential of the KLK4-A2 and KLK3-B35 TCRs was analyzed. The KLK3-B35 TCR exhibited cross-reactivity against two additional peptides derived from LOXHD1 and CDH23, with broad tissue expression, and was therefore excluded. The KLK4-A2 TCR was highly specific for the KLK4 peptide. Further testing confirmed effective cytotoxic killing potential of KLK4-A2 TCR in vitro and in vivo, underscoring its therapeutic potential. These findings highlight the promise of the KLK4-A2 TCR for prostate cancer immunotherapy and demonstrate that prostate-specific antigens can be effectively targeted using TCR gene transfer strategies.
大多数前列腺癌免疫疗法的疗效受到肿瘤免疫原性差的限制,这一点从T细胞浸润极少可以得到证明。通过工程改造使T细胞表达靶向前列腺特异性抗原的T细胞受体(TCR)进行治疗,绕过内源性T细胞库的限制,提供了一种潜在的解决方案。通过差异基因表达分析,我们确定了激肽释放酶相关肽酶2、3和4(KLK2、KLK3和KLK4)以及同源盒B13(HOXB13)为严格的前列腺谱系特异性基因,它们在前列腺癌中高表达,在健康风险组织中不表达。鉴定出了源自这些抗原的天然加工肽,从而能够使用肽-MHC多聚体富集T细胞。从同种异体HLA不匹配的供体中分离出靶向这些抗原的高亲和力T细胞。在筛选了靶向肿瘤特异性和无脱靶反应性后,对识别HLA-A02:01中的KLK4和HLA-B35:01中的KLK3的TCR进行了测序并进一步测试。通过TCR基因转移在T细胞中表达TCR,并选择性能最佳的TCR。使用组合肽库扫描分析了KLK4-A2和KLK3-B35 TCR的交叉反应潜力。KLK3-B35 TCR对源自LOXHD1和CDH23的另外两种肽表现出交叉反应性,且组织表达广泛,因此被排除。KLK4-A2 TCR对KLK4肽具有高度特异性。进一步测试证实了KLK4-A2 TCR在体外和体内具有有效的细胞毒性杀伤潜力,突出了其治疗潜力。这些发现凸显了KLK4-A2 TCR在前列腺癌免疫治疗中的前景,并证明使用TCR基因转移策略可以有效靶向前列腺特异性抗原。
Cancer Immunol Res. 2025-8-1
J Immunother Cancer. 2025-7-31