Development of Novel Second Generation DC/Tumor Fusion Vaccine in Lymphoma

Introduction: We have pioneered a personalized cancer vaccine in which patient derived tumor cells are fused with autologous dendritic cells (DCs) such that a broad array of shared and neo-tumor antigens is presented in the context of DC mediated co-stimulation, limiting the risk of antigen escape. In clinical trials of patients with hematologic malignancies, vaccination with DC/tumor fusions induced an expansion of tumor-specific T cells, and resulted in prolonged remissions in a subset of patients. In the current study, we have developed a novel second generation vaccine, whereby a DC/lymphoma fusion vaccine is presented in the context of a unique biomatrix that expresses high levels of the 41BB costimulatory molecule, to further accentuate T cell activation and prevent the establishment of tumor tolerance. In this study, we demonstrate efficacy of DC/lymphoma fusion cell vaccination in a preclinical lymphoma model, and show enhanced potency of the second-generation vaccine.

Methods/Results:

We first demonstrated the potency of the DC/tumor fusion vaccine in generating anti-tumor immunity in the A20 lymphoma model. Murine DC/A20 fusions were generated from bone marrow derived mononuclear cells cultured with GM-CSF and IL-4 then fused to syngeneic A20 lymphoma cells. DC/A20 fusion cells effectively induced tumor specific immunity as manifested by potent lysis of A20 T cells in vitro as compared to unstimulated T cells in a standard CTL assay. Consistent with this observation, vaccination with DC/A20 fusions effectively induced lymphoma specific immunity in an immunocompetent murine model. Balb/C mice (30 animals) underwent IV inoculation with 750,000 syngeneic, luciferase and mCherry transduced, A20 cells. 24 hours after tumor cells challenge, 15 mice were treated subcutaneously with 10⁵ DC/A20 fusions. Tumor burden was detected using BLI imaging. 10 days post inoculation, within the untreated cohort all 15/15 mice had detectable tumor whereas within the treated group, 5 mice did not demonstrate any evidence of disease and 5 mice demonstrated minimal disease.

We subsequently demonstrated that patient derived autologous DC/lymphoma fusions stimulated T cell mediated lysis of primary lymphoma cells. DC were generated from patient derived peripheral blood mononuclear cells cultured with GM-CSF and IL-4 and matured with TNFa. Primary lymphoma cells were isolated from resected tumor and fused with DC at a ratio of 10:1. Fusion stimulated T cells potently lysed autologous tumor cells as compared to unstimulated T cells (25.7% as compared to 12.66%) in a standard CTL assay.

To further enhance vaccine potency, we developed a biomatrix substrate expressing the costimulatory molecule 41BB. Using carbodiimide chemistry we covalently bonded RGD peptide and 41BBL protein to an alginate (Alg)-based scaffold. The Alg/RGD/41BBL scaffold can serve as a supporting microenvironment for the co-culture of T cells and fusion vaccine. We cultured syngeneic T cells with DC/A20 fusion vaccine within a scaffold with or without bound 41BBL and examined the T cells cytotoxicity by a CTL assay as described above. Vaccine mediated stimulation of T cells in the context of the Alg/RGD/41BBL scaffold demonstrated higher levels of tumor lysis as compared to the percent T cells cultured within an Alg/RGD scaffold (22.95% and 13.95% respectively).

Conclusion: In the current study we assessed the efficacy of the DC/Lymphoma fusion vaccine to elicit a tumor specific immune response. We succeeded in demonstrating the capacity of DC/Lymphoma fusion vaccine to generate tumor specific T cell cytotoxicity in vitro as well as in vivo in an immunocompetent murine model. Accordingly, we presented patient derived primary tumor results supporting the applicable nature of the DC/Lymphoma vaccine in lymphoma patients. In addition, we developed a second-generation fusion vaccine comprised of the original DC/Tumor vaccine presented to the T cells in an Alg/RGD/41BBL scaffold acting as a nurturing microenvironment for T cell immune specific response against the tumor cells. Our initial results exhibit promising potential and an in vivo experiment with the second-generation fusion vaccine is ongoing.