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Tumors with microsatellite instability (MSI) are caused by a defective DNA mismatch repair system that leads to the accumulation of mutations within microsatellite regions. Indels in microsatellites of coding genes can result in the synthesis of frameshift peptides (FSP). FSPs are tumor-specific neoantigens shared across patients with MSI. In this study, we developed a neoantigen-based vaccine for the treatment of MSI tumors. Genetic sequences from 320 MSI tumor biopsies and matched healthy tissues in The Cancer Genome Atlas database were analyzed to select shared FSPs. Two hundred nine FSPs were selected and cloned into nonhuman Great Ape Adenoviral and Modified Vaccinia Ankara vectors to generate a viral-vectored vaccine, referred to as Nous-209. Sequencing tumor biopsies of 20 independent patients with MSI colorectal cancer revealed that a median number of 31 FSPs out of the 209 encoded by the vaccine was detected both in DNA and mRNA extracted from each tumor biopsy. A relevant number of peptides encoded by the vaccine were predicted to bind patient HLA haplotypes. Vaccine immunogenicity was demonstrated in mice with potent and broad induction of FSP-specific CD8 and CD4 T-cell responses. Moreover, a vaccine-encoded FSP was processed in vitro by human antigen-presenting cells and was subsequently able to activate human CD8 T cells. Nous-209 is an “off-the-shelf” cancer vaccine encoding many neoantigens shared across sporadic and hereditary MSI tumors. These results indicate that Nous-209 can induce the optimal breadth of immune responses that might achieve clinical benefit to treat and prevent MSI tumors.Significance:These findings demonstrate the feasibility of an “off-the-shelf” vaccine for treatment and prevention of tumors harboring frameshift mutations and neoantigenic peptides as a result of microsatellite instability.

List of 1087 FSPs suitable for the inclusion in NOUS-209 vaccine.

Personalized vaccines hold great promise to exert meaningful clinical efficacy, with durable tumor control maintained by a vaccine–induced memory response. NOUS–PEV is a personalized viral prime–boost cancer vaccine that expresses 60 patient–specific neoantigens identified by next generation sequencing (NGS) and selected with a proprietary algorithm VENUS (Leoni & D’Alise et al, Vaccines, 9, 2021). Administration is intramuscular, with a priming Great Ape Adenovirus (GAd) vaccination, followed by Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) “boosts”, administered in combination with the PD–1 blocking antibody pembrolizumab in patients with metastatic malignant melanoma and non–small cell lung cancer. Data from the Part 1 dose–confirmation cohort of 3 patients demonstrated the combination of NOUS–PEV and pembrolizumab to be safe and well–tolerated, with early indications of efficacy and immunogenicity (Bechter, et al SITC 2022 Poster number: 706). Now in Part 2 extension–expansion cohorts, we present extended safety, immunogenicity and clinical data at 11 months median follow–up for 6 vaccinated melanoma patients. Tolerability remains good with no grade 3 or 4 vaccine related adverse events and activity encouraging, with 4 PRs, 1 SD and only 1 PD as best response. Immune responses were evaluated by ex–vivo interferon–gamma ELISpot on PBMC collected at baseline, post pembrolizumab, and post vaccination. Vaccine immunogenicity was demonstrated in all evaluable patients receiving the prime/boost regimen (n=4), with a mean of T cell response of ~ 650 IFN–γ spot forming cells (SFC) per million of PBMC (range 380–1,250 SFC/106) and with observed induction of both CD4 and CD8 T cell responses which lasted for at least 6 months. By analyzing the intratumoral TCR repertoire, we found increase of T cells by ~3 fold on average post treatment with NOUS–PEV in all evaluable patients (n=3), with expansion and diversification of intratumoral T cell clones. Vaccine–induced TCR clonotypes were found in on–treatment tumor biopsies of 2 vaccinated patients, providing the proof–of–concept for neoantigen induced T cells homing and infiltrating into the tumor. Overall, these data show that NOUS–PEV continues to be safe, and elicits a robust long lasting immune response and clinical activity. Citation Format: Oliver Bechter, Anna Morena D'Alise, Guido Leoni, Gabriella Cotugno, Loredana Siani, Rosa Vitale, Valentino Ruzza, Irene Garzia, Laura Antonucci, Elisa Micarelli, Sven Gogov, Alessia Capone, Juan Martin-Liberal, Emiliano Calvo, Victor Moreno, Stefan Symeonides, Elisa Scarselli. NOUS-PEV, a personalized cancer immunotherapy targeting neoantigens, induces long lasting, tumor infiltrating memory T cells [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 2 (Clinical Trials and Late-Breaking Research); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(8_Suppl):Abstract nr LB196.

BackgroundTumor microenvironment (TME) represents a critical hurdle in cancer immunotherapy, given its ability to suppress antitumor immunity. Several efforts are made to overcome this hostile TME with the development of new therapeutic strategies modifying TME to boost antitumor immunity. Among these, cytokine-based approaches have been pursued for their known immunomodulatory effects on different cell populations within the TME. IL-12 is a potent pro-inflammatory cytokine that demonstrates striking immune activation and tumor control but causes severe adverse effects when systemically administered. Thus, local administration is considered a potential strategy to achieve high cytokine concentrations at the tumor site while sparing systemic adverse effects.MethodsModified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA) vector is a potent inducer of pro-inflammatory response. Here, we cloned IL-12 into the genome of MVA for intratumoral immunotherapy, combining the immunomodulatory properties of both the vector and the cargo. The antitumor activity of MVA-IL-12 and its effect on TME reprogramming were investigated in preclinical tumor models. RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) analysis was performed to assess changes in the TME in treated and distal tumors and the effect on the intratumoral T-cell receptor repertoire.ResultsIntratumoral injection of MVA-IL-12 resulted in strong antitumor activity with the complete remission of established tumors in multiple murine models, including those resistant to checkpoint inhibitors. The therapeutic activity of MVA-IL-12 was associated with very low levels of circulating cytokine. Effective TME reprogramming was demonstrated on treatment, with the reduction of immunosuppressive M2 macrophages while increasing pro-inflammatory M1, and recruitment of dendritic cells. TME switch from immunosuppressive into immunostimulatory environment allowed for CD8 T cells priming and expansion leading to tumor attack.ConclusionsIntratumoral administration of MVA-IL-12 turns immunologically ‘cold’ tumors ‘hot’ and overcomes resistance to programmed cell death protein-1 blockade.

Oncolytic viruses (OVs) are novel anti-tumor agents with the ability to selectively infect and kill tumor cells while sparing normal tissue. Beyond tumor cytolysis, OVs are capable of priming an anti-tumor immune response via lysis and cross-presentation of locally expressed endogenous tumor antigens, acting as an “endovaccine.” The effectiveness of OVs, similar to other immunotherapies, can be hampered by an immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment. In this study, we modified a previously generated oncolytic herpes simplex virus (oHSV) retargeted to the human HER2 (hHER2) tumor molecule and encoding murine interleukin-12 (mIL-12), by insertion of a second immunomodulatory molecule, murine granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (mGM-CSF), to maximize therapeutic efficacy. We assessed the efficacy of this double-armed virus (R-123) compared to singly expressing GM-CSF and IL-12 oHSVs in tumor-bearing mice. While monotherapies were poorly effective, combination with α-PD1 enhanced the anti-tumor response, with the highest efficacy of 100% response rate achieved by the combination of R-123 and α-PD1. Efficacy was T cell-dependent, and the induced immunity was long lasting and able to reject a second contralateral tumor. Importantly, systemic delivery of R-123 combined with α-PD1 was effective in inhibiting the development of tumor metastasis. As such, this approach could have a significant therapeutic impact paving the way for further development of this platform in cancer immunotherapy., Graphical Abstract, Fully virulent tumor retargeted HSV oncolytic viruses (THVs) are novel immunotherapeutic agents with increased specificity, safety, and potency. De Lucia et al. propose the use of a hHER2 THV expressing IL-12 and GM-CSF as a strategy to potentiate anti-tumor efficacy in combination with anti-PD1, opening future perspectives for local and systemic treatment.

Neoantigens are tumor-specific antigens able to induce T-cell responses, generated by mutations in protein-coding regions of expressed genes. Previous studies demonstrated that only a limited subset of mutations generates neoantigens in microsatellite stable tumors. We developed a method, called VENUS (Vaccine-Encoded Neoantigens Unrestricted Selection), to prioritize mutated peptides with high potential to be neoantigens. Our method assigns to each mutation a weighted score that combines the mutation allelic frequency, the abundance of the transcript coding for the mutation, and the likelihood to bind the patient’s class-I major histocompatibility complex alleles. By ranking mutated peptides encoded by mutations detected in nine cancer patients, VENUS was able to select in the top 60 ranked peptides, the 95% of neoantigens experimentally validated including both CD8 and CD4 T cell specificities. VENUS was evaluated in a murine model in the context of vaccination with an adeno vector encoding the top ranked mutations prioritized in the MC38 cell line. Efficacy studies demonstrated anti tumoral activity of the vaccine when used in combination with checkpoint inhibitors. The results obtained highlight the importance of a combined scoring system taking into account multiple features of each tumor mutation to improve the accuracy of neoantigen prediction.

Tumors with microsatellite instability (MSI) are caused by a defective DNA mismatch repair system that leads to the accumulation of mutations within microsatellite regions. Indels in microsatellites of coding genes can result in the synthesis of frameshift peptides (FSP). FSPs are tumor-specific neoantigens shared across patients with MSI. In this study, we developed a neoantigen-based vaccine for the treatment of MSI tumors. Genetic sequences from 320 MSI tumor biopsies and matched healthy tissues in The Cancer Genome Atlas database were analyzed to select shared FSPs. Two hundred nine FSPs were selected and cloned into nonhuman Great Ape Adenoviral and Modified Vaccinia Ankara vectors to generate a viral-vectored vaccine, referred to as Nous-209. Sequencing tumor biopsies of 20 independent patients with MSI colorectal cancer revealed that a median number of 31 FSPs out of the 209 encoded by the vaccine was detected both in DNA and mRNA extracted from each tumor biopsy. A relevant number of peptides encoded by the vaccine were predicted to bind patient HLA haplotypes. Vaccine immunogenicity was demonstrated in mice with potent and broad induction of FSP-specific CD8 and CD4 T-cell responses. Moreover, a vaccine-encoded FSP was processed in vitro by human antigen-presenting cells and was subsequently able to activate human CD8 T cells. Nous-209 is an “off-the-shelf” cancer vaccine encoding many neoantigens shared across sporadic and hereditary MSI tumors. These results indicate that Nous-209 can induce the optimal breadth of immune responses that might achieve clinical benefit to treat and prevent MSI tumors. Significance: These findings demonstrate the feasibility of an “off-the-shelf” vaccine for treatment and prevention of tumors harboring frameshift mutations and neoantigenic peptides as a result of microsatellite instability.

BackgroundA number of different immune pathways are involved in the effective killing of cancer cells, collectively named as the ‘Cancer Immunity Cycle’. Anti-PD-1 checkpoint blockade (CPB) therapy is active on one of these pathways and reinvigorates anticancer T cell immunity, leading to long-term responses in a limited fraction of patients with cancer. We have previously shown that neoantigens-based adenovirus vectored vaccine in combination with anti-PD-1 further expands pre-existing anticancer immunity and elicits novel neoantigen-specific T cells thereby increasing efficacy to 50% of tumor clearance in mice. Here we added a third component to the CPB plus vaccine combination, which is able to modify the suppressive tumor microenvironment by reducing the number of tumor-infiltrating regulatory T cells (Tregs), as strategy for improving the therapeutic efficacy and overcoming resistance.MethodsThe antitumor efficacy of anti-PD-1, neoantigen vaccine and Treg modulating agents, either Bempegaldesleukin (BEMPEG: NKTR-214) or an anti-CTLA-4 mAb with Treg-depleting activity, was investigated in murine tumor models. We evaluated tumor growth in treated animals, neoantigen-specific T cells in tumors, tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and intratumoral Tregs.ResultsThe addition of BEMPEG or anti-CTLA-4 to the combination of vaccine and anti-PD-1 led to complete eradication of large tumors in nearby 100% of treated animals, in association with expansion and activation of cancer neoantigen-specific T cells and reduction of tumor-infiltrating Tregs.ConclusionThese data support the notion that the integrated regulation of three steps of the cancer immunity cycle, including expansion of neoantigen-specific T cells, reversal of the exhausted T cell phenotype together with the reduction of intratumoral Tregs may represent a novel rationally designed drug combination approach to achieve higher cure rates.