Injecting amounts of two immune-stimulating agents directly into tumors in multiple types of mouse cancer models can eliminate all traces of cancer, according to a new study published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
Dual immunotherapy led to shrinkage of distant tumors and long-term survival of the animals, even in a stringent spontaneous tumor model. Image credit: Rilson S. Avelar.
“When we use these two agents together, we see the elimination of tumors all over the body,” said lead author Professor Ronald Levy, from the Stanford University School of Medicine.
“This approach bypasses the need to identify tumor-specific immune targets and doesn’t require wholesale activation of the immune system or customization of a patient’s immune cells.”
Cancers often exist in a strange kind of limbo with regard to the immune system.
Immune cells like T cells recognize the abnormal proteins often present on cancer cells and infiltrate to attack the tumor. However, as the tumor grows, it often devises ways to suppress the activity of the T cells.
The team’s method works to reactivate the cancer-specific T cells by injecting microgram amounts of two agents directly into the tumor site.
One, a short stretch of DNA called a CpG oligonucleotide, works with other nearby immune cells to amplify the expression of an activating receptor called OX40 on the surface of the T cells.
The other, an antibody that binds to OX40, activates the T cells to lead the charge against the cancer cells.
Because the two agents are injected directly into the tumor, only T cells that have infiltrated it are activated. In effect, these T cells are ‘prescreened’ by the body to recognize only cancer-specific proteins.
Some of these tumor-specific, activated T cells then leave the original tumor to find and destroy other identical tumors throughout the body.
The approach worked startlingly well in laboratory mice with transplanted mouse lymphoma tumors in two sites on their bodies.
Injecting one tumor site with the two agents caused the regression not just of the treated tumor, but also of the second, untreated tumor.
In this way, 87 of 90 mice were cured of the cancer. Although the cancer recurred in three of the mice, the tumors again regressed after a second treatment.
The researchers saw similar results in mice bearing breast, colon and melanoma tumors.
Mice genetically engineered to spontaneously develop breast cancers in all 10 of their mammary pads also responded to the treatment.
Treating the first tumor that arose often prevented the occurrence of future tumors and significantly increased the animals’ life span, the scientists found.
Finally, they explored the specificity of the T cells by transplanting two types of tumors into the mice.
They transplanted the same lymphoma cancer cells in two locations, and transplanted a colon cancer cell line in a third location.
Treatment of one of the lymphoma sites caused the regression of both lymphoma tumors but did not affect the growth of the colon cancer cells.
“This is a very targeted approach. Only the tumor that shares the protein targets displayed by the treated site is affected. We’re attacking specific targets without having to identify exactly what proteins the T cells are recognizing,” Professor Levy said.
The current clinical trial is expected to recruit about 15 patients with low-grade lymphoma. If successful, the authors believe the treatment could be useful for many tumor types.
They envision a future in which clinicians inject the two agents into solid tumors in humans prior to surgical removal of the cancer as a way to prevent recurrence due to unidentified metastases or lingering cancer cells, or even to head off the development of future tumors that arise due to genetic mutations like BRCA1 and 2.
“I don’t think there’s a limit to the type of tumor we could potentially treat, as long as it has been infiltrated by the immune system,” Professor Levy said.
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Idit Sagiv-Barfi et al. 2018. Eradication of spontaneous malignancy by local immunotherapy. Science Translational Medicine 10 (426): eaan4488; doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aan4488
