[HTML][HTML] Engineered DNA vaccination against follicle-stimulating hormone receptor delays ovarian cancer progression in animal models

A Perales-Puchalt, K Wojtak, EK Duperret, X Yang… - Molecular Therapy, 2019 - cell.com
A Perales-Puchalt, K Wojtak, EK Duperret, X Yang, AM Slager, J Yan, K Muthumani…
Molecular Therapy, 2019cell.com
Ovarian cancer presents in 80% of patients as a metastatic disease, which confers it with
dismal prognosis despite surgery and chemotherapy. However, it is an immunogenic
disease, and the presence of intratumoral T cells is a major prognostic factor for survival. We
used a synthetic consensus (SynCon) approach to generate a novel DNA vaccine that
breaks immune tolerance to follicle-stimulating hormone receptor (FSHR), present in 50% of
ovarian cancers but confined to the ovary in healthy tissues. SynCon FSHR DNA vaccine …
Ovarian cancer presents in 80% of patients as a metastatic disease, which confers it with dismal prognosis despite surgery and chemotherapy. However, it is an immunogenic disease, and the presence of intratumoral T cells is a major prognostic factor for survival. We used a synthetic consensus (SynCon) approach to generate a novel DNA vaccine that breaks immune tolerance to follicle-stimulating hormone receptor (FSHR), present in 50% of ovarian cancers but confined to the ovary in healthy tissues. SynCon FSHR DNA vaccine generated robust CD8+ and CD4+ cellular immune responses and FSHR-redirected antibodies. The SynCon FSHR DNA vaccine delayed the progression of a highly aggressive ovarian cancer model with peritoneal carcinomatosis in immunocompetent mice, and it increased the infiltration of anti-tumor CD8+ T cells in the tumor microenvironment. Anti-tumor activity of this FSHR vaccine was confirmed in a syngeneic murine FSHR-expressing prostate cancer model. Furthermore, adoptive transfer of vaccine-primed CD8+ T cells after ex vivo expansion delayed ovarian cancer progression. In conclusion, the SynCon FSHR vaccine was able to break immune tolerance and elicit an effective anti-tumor response associated with an increase in tumor-infiltrating T cells. FSHR DNA vaccination could help current ovarian cancer therapy after first-line treatment of FSHR+ tumors to prevent tumor recurrence.
cell.com