| Literature DB >> 35003064 |
Jun-Wei Huang1, Chun-Lin Kuo2, Li-Tzu Wang3, Kevin Sheng-Kai Ma4,5, Wen-Yen Huang6, Feng-Cheng Liu7, Kuender D Yang8,9,10, Bing-Heng Yang11,12,13.
Abstract
The combination of radiotherapy and immunotherapy improves the survival rate of patients with malignancies developed through escape from T-cell-mediated immune surveillance. Immune checkpoint inhibitors, such as anti-programmed cell death protein-ligand 1 (anti-PD-L1) antibody, are used to rescue exhausted T cells. Simultaneously, dendritic cells (DCs) which are antigen-presenting cells that can initiate T-cell activation, are used to induce a tumor-specific immune response. However, the synergistic antitumor efficacy of the aforementioned combinational immunotherapy with intratumoral injection of low-dose DCs has not been reported, and the underlying therapeutic mechanism requires further investigation. Herein, we present the special case of a psoriatic patient with cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) in the right inguinal region, these two diseases characterized by opposing contradiction, further complicating treatments and side-effect management efforts. To treat the intractable SCC without exaggerating psoriasis, we developed the triple-regimen therapy (TRT) with the intratumoral injection of low-dose autologous DCs and anti-PD-L1 combined with radiotherapy. The injected DCs were obtained simply through leukapheresis without prior G-CSF administration for mobilization nor tumor-antigen loading for expansion. The patient received three radiation doses (24, 18, and 18 Gy) combined with three intratumoral injections of anti-PD-L1 antibody (40, 60, and 120 mg) plus autologous DCs (80% of the DC subpopulation being CD16+ myeloid DC with approximate amounts of 7.3 × 104, 2.5 × 106, and 1.7 × 107) within 10 weeks. The efficacy of the TRT was encouraging in shrinking tumor mass with remarkable SUVmax reduction (approximately 42%) on FDG PET-Scan despite relatively low-dose DCs were available. The low-dose intratumoral immunotherapy induced mild cutaneous side effects as expected. The transcriptomes were compared between pre-TRT and post-TRT biopsies to analyze underlying mechanical pathways of the TRT protocol. Over 10 highly significantly enriched T-cell-related pathways (P <0.0001) were identified in post-TRT biopsies. In addition, the activation of both innate and adaptive immunity was significantly enriched in post-TRT peripheral blood samples. We develop the easily accessible TRT which produces both local anti-tumor T-cell responses and systemic antitumor immunity for treating cSCC patients, especially for those with autoimmune disease.Entities:
Keywords: checkpoint inhibitor combination therapy; cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC); dendritic cell-based immunotherapy; in situ vaccination; intratumoral injection therapy; monocyte-derived dendritic cells (MoDCs); psoriasis vulgaris (PV); radiotherapy
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Year: 2021 PMID: 35003064 PMCID: PMC8733210 DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2021.752563
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Front Immunol ISSN: 1664-3224 Impact factor: 7.561
Figure 1Peripheral blood (PB) CD16+ myeloid dendritic cell (mDC) enrichment of a patient with psoriasis and cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC). (A) Protocol of intratumoral injection of autologous DC-enriched PB plus anti-PD-L1 antibody combined with local radiation. (B) Population of mDC and plasmacytoid DC (pDC) in PB before versus after DC enrichment. Blood cells were first gated on FSC-H versus SSC-H, single cells were gated on FSC-A versus FSC-H, and CD45+ leukocytes were gated for DC analyses in Lin− (CD3−CD14−CD19−CD20−CD56−) and HLA-DR+ cells. CD11c+ and CD123+ were then respectively used to identify mDCs and pDCs, with subsequent analyses of CD1c+, CD16+, and CD141+ mDC subpopulations. (C) Dimensionality reduction in multiparametric flow cytometry for pDCs, CD1c+ mDCs, CD16+ mDCs, and CD141+ mDCs in Lin−HLA-DR+ DC-enriched PB, assessed with a t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE)-based algorithm. (D) Pooled data for frequencies of CD123+ pDCs and CD11c+ mDCs in the Lin−HLA-DR+ myeloid cells assessed through flow cytometry. ***P <0.001 using an unpaired t test. (E) Pooled data for frequencies of CD1c+, CD16+, or CD141+ cells in the Lin−HLA-DR+CD11c+mDC population of DC-enriched PB assessed using flow cytometry. ***P <0.001 using one-way analysis of variance with Tukey’s multiple comparison test.
Figure 2Therapeutic effect of intratumoral immunotherapy combined with local radiation. (A) Primary lesion conditions assessed (a) pre-TRT status, (b) after the first TRT course, (c) after the second TRT course, and (d) after the whole TRT period. (B) The tumor mass shrank with remarkable SUVmax reduction of 42% on FDG positron emission tomography (PET)-Scan. Tumor sizes before any treatment (left panel) and after the complete TRT period (right panel) were assessed using PET.
Figure 3TRT results in enrichment of local T-cell-related pathways and systemic antitumor immunity through Metascape analysis. (A) T-cell-related pathways were enriched in the gene ontology biological processes for tumors with TRT versus no treatment by P-values. (B) The upregulated pathways were composed of differentially expressed genes, presented as a network of enriched terms for peripheral blood with TRT versus no treatment. (C) Top 20 clusters of both innate and adaptive immunity-associated pathways were enriched in the gene ontology biology processes for PB with TRT versus no treatment by P-values.