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- Fotaki, Grammatiki, 1988-
(författare)
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Allogeneic dendritic cells as adjuvants in cancer immunotherapy
- 2019
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In recent years, immunotherapeutic approaches have achieved remarkable successes through checkpoint blockade antibodies, advances in the use of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells and new insights into the immunosuppressive role of the tumor microenvironment (TME). Through the advances, the role of cancer vaccines based on ex vivo manipulated autologous dendritic cells (DC) has been challenged. The main aim of DC-based vaccination is the induction of tumor-specific T-cell responses through presentation of tumor-associated antigens. However, this process has been found to be highly dependent on the ability of the injected vaccine-DCs to activate endogenous bystander DCs.In this work, we examined the feasibility of having an allogeneic source of vaccine-DCs (alloDCs), not for direct antigen-presentation to T cells but as an immune primer aiming to activate bystander DCs. In paper I, we treated alloDCs with a T helper cell type 1 (Th1)-promoting maturation cocktail alone or combined with a replication-deficient, infection-enhanced adenoviral vector (Ad5M) as a potential gene delivery vehicle. We found that mature pro-inflammatory alloDCs, either non-transduced or transduced, created a cytokine- and chemokine-enriched milieu in vitro, and promoted the activation of co-cultured immune cells, including cytolytic NK cells, from unrelated donors. The emerged milieu induced the maturation of bystander DCs, which cross-presented antigens from their environment to autologous antigen-specific T cells. In paper II, we found that alloDCs promoted the migration of murine immune cells both to the site of injection and to the draining lymph node. When Ad5M was used for the delivery of the melanoma-associated antigen gp100, we found that gp100-expressing alloDCs were able to control tumor growth through gp100-specific T-cell responses and alteration of the TME. In paper III, we found that co-administration of alloDCs with an adenoviral vector encoding for HPV-antigens is effective in controlling the growth of HPV-related tumors and this may depend on a cross-talk between alloDCs and NK cells which leads to further recruitment of immune cells into the TME. In paper IV, we observed that concomitant targeting of immune checkpoint receptors or co-stimulatory molecules results in synergistic therapeutic effects in a murine colorectal model.
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| 2. |
- Yu, Di, 1985-
(författare)
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Adenovirus for Cancer Therapy : With a Focus on its Surface Modification
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Adenovirus serotype 5 (Ad5) is widely used as an oncolytic agent for cancer therapy. However, its infectivity is highly dependent on the expression level of coxsackievirus-adenovirus receptor (CAR) on the surface of tumor cells. We engineered Ad5 virus with the protein transduction domain (PTD) from the HIV-1 Tat protein (Tat-PTD) inserted in the hypervariable region 5 (HVR5) of the hexon protein in the virus capsid. Tat-PTD-modified Ad5 shows a dramatically increased transduction level of CAR-negative cells and bypassed fiber-mediated transduction. It also overcomes the fiber-masking problem, which is caused by release of excess fiber proteins from infected cells. To achieve specific viral replication in neuroblastoma and neuroendocrine tumor cells, we identified the secretogranin III (SCG3) promoter and constructed an adenovirus Ad5PTD(ASH1-SCG3-E1A) wherein E1A gene expression is controlled by the SCG3 promoter and the achaete-scute complex homolog 1 (ASH1) enhancer. This virus shows selective and efficient killing of neuroblastoma cell lines in vitro, and delays human neuroblastoma xenograft tumor growth on nude mice. To further enhance the viral oncolytic efficacy, we also switched the fiber 5 to fiber 35 to generate Ad5PTDf35. This vector shows dramatically increased transduction capacity of primary human cell cultures including hematopoietic cells and their derivatives, pancreatic islets and exocrine cells, mesenchymal stem cells and primary tumor cells including primary cancer initiating cells. Ad5PTDf35-based adenovirus could be a useful platform for gene delivery and oncolytic virus development. Viral oncolysis alone cannot completely eradicate tumors. Therefore, we further armed the Ad5PTDf35-D24 virus with a secreted form of Helicobacter pylori Neutrophil Activating Protein (HP-NAP). Expression of HP-NAP recruits neutrophils to the site of infection, activates an innate immune response against tumor cells and provokes a Th1-type adaptive immune response. Established tumor on nude mice could be completely eradicated in some cases after treatment with this virus and the survival of mice was significantly prolonged.
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