Local administration of a novel Toll-like receptor 7 agonist in combination with doxorubicin induces durable tumouricidal effects in a murine model of T cell lymphoma

BACKGROUND: Conventional chemotherapy and radiotherapy for the treatment of lymphoma have notable drawbacks, and passive immunotherapy using a monoclonal antibody is restricted to CD20-positive B cell lymphoma. Therefore, new treatment types are urgently required, especially for T cell lymphoma. One type of new antitumour therapy is the use of active immunotherapeutic agents, such as agonists of the Toll-like receptors (TLRs), which facilitate the induction of prolonged antitumour immune responses. METHODS: We have synthesised a novel TLR7 agonist called SZU-101 and investigated the systemic antitumour effect on a murine model of T cell lymphoma in vivo. RESULTS: Here, we report that the intratumoural administration of SZU-101 enhanced the effectiveness of a conventionally used chemotherapeutic agent, doxorubicin (DOX). SZU-101 administration improved tumour clearance in a murine model of T cell lymphoma. The novel combination of intratumourally administered SZU-101 and DOX generated strong cytokine production and enhanced the cytotoxic T lymphocyte response, leading to the eradication of both local and distant tumours in tumour-bearing mice. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggested that combined active immunotherapy can be developed as a promising treatment for T cell lymphoma, which may further improve the effectiveness of the current standard cyclophosphamide, DOX, vincristine and prednisone (CHOP) therapy. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13045-015-0121-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.