Alphavirus Replicon Particle Vaccine Breaks B Cell Tolerance and Rapidly Induces IgG to Murine Hematolymphoid Tumor Associated Antigens

Abstract

De novo immune responses to myeloid and other blood-borne tumors are notably limited and ineffective, making our ability to promote immune responses with vaccines a major challenge. While focus has been largely on cytotoxic cell-mediated tumor eradication, B-cells and the antibodies they produce also have roles in anti-tumor responses. Indeed, therapeutic antibody-mediated tumor cell killing is routinely employed in patients with hematolymphoid cancers, but whether endogenous antibody responses can be incited to blood-born tumors remains poorly studied. A major limitation of immunoglobulin therapies is that cell surface expression of tumor-associated antigen (TAA) targets is dynamic and varied, making promotion of polyclonal, endogenous B cell responses appealing. Since many TAAs are self-antigens, developing tumor vaccines that enable production of antibodies to non-polymorphic antigen targets remains a challenge. As B cell responses to RNA vaccines are known to occur, we employed the Viral Replicon Particles (VRP) which was constructed to encode mouse FLT3. The VRP-FLT3 vaccine provoked a rapid IgG B-cell response to this self-antigen in leukemia and lymphoma mouse models. In addition, IgGs to other TAAs were also produced. Our data suggest that vaccination with RNA viral particle vectors incites a loss of B-cell tolerance that enables production of anti-tumor antibodies. This proof of principle work provides impetus to employ such strategies that lead to a break in B-cell tolerance and enable production of broadly reactive anti-TAA antibodies as potential future therapeutic agents for patients with hematolymphoid cancers.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
May 24, 2022
Source ID
10.3389/fimmu.2022.865486

Entities

People

  • Benny J. Chen
  • Hsuan Su
  • Jonathan C. Poe
  • Jonathan S. Serody
  • Kazuhiro Imai
  • Phuong L. Doan
  • Rachel A. Dicioccio
  • Stefanie Sarantopoulos
  • Wei Jia
  • Zhiguo Li

Organizations

  • United States Department of Defense

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Biology
  • Medicine

Readers

  • Immunology
  • Oncology
  • Systems Analysis and Design

Technology Areas

  • Biotechnology
  • Biotechnology - Cancer Biotech