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Immune checkpoint inhibition combined with targeted therapy using a novel virus-like drug conjugate induces complete responses in a murine model of local and distant tumors
Metastases remain the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Therefore, improving the treatment efficacy against such tumors is essential to enhance patient survival. AU-011 (belzupacap sarotalocan) is a new virus-like drug conjugate which is currently in clinical development for the treat...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10264500/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36997666 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00262-023-03425-3 |
Sumario: | Metastases remain the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. Therefore, improving the treatment efficacy against such tumors is essential to enhance patient survival. AU-011 (belzupacap sarotalocan) is a new virus-like drug conjugate which is currently in clinical development for the treatment of small choroidal melanoma and high-risk indeterminate lesions in the eye. Upon light activation, AU-011 induces rapid necrotic cell death which is pro-inflammatory and pro-immunogenic, resulting in an anti-tumor immune response. As AU-011 is known to induce systemic anti-tumor immune responses, we investigated whether this combination therapy would also be effective against distant, untreated tumors, as a model for treating local and distant tumors by abscopal immune effects. We compared the efficacy of combining AU-011 with several different checkpoint blockade antibodies to identify optimal treatment regimens in an in vivo tumor model. We show that AU-011 induces immunogenic cell death through the release and exposure of damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs), resulting in the maturation of dendritic cells in vitro. Furthermore, we show that AU-011 accumulates in MC38 tumors over time and that ICI enhances the efficacy of AU-011 against established tumors in mice, resulting in complete responses for specific combinations in all treated animals bearing a single MC38 tumor. Finally, we show that AU-011 and anti-PD-L1/anti-LAG-3 antibody treatment was an optimal combination in an abscopal model, inducing complete responses in approximately 75% of animals. Our data show the feasibility of combining AU-011 with PD-L1 and LAG-3 antibodies for the treatment of primary and distant tumors. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00262-023-03425-3. |
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