Peptide-TLR-7/8a conjugate vaccines chemically programmed for nanoparticle self-assembly enhance CD8 T-cell immunity to tumor antigens.

Publication Type	Academic Article
Authors	Lynn G, Sedlik C, Baharom F, Zhu Y, Ramirez-Valdez R, Coble V, Tobin K, Nichols S, Itzkowitz Y, Zaidi N, Gammon J, Blobel N, Denizeau J, de la Rochere P, Francica B, Decker B, Maciejewski M, Cheung J, Yamane H, Smelkinson M, Francica J, Laga R, Bernstock J, Seymour L, Drake C, Jewell C, Lantz O, Piaggio E, Ishizuka A, Seder R
Journal	Nat Biotechnol
Volume	38
Issue	3
Pagination	320-332
Date Published	01/13/2020
ISSN	1546-1696
Keywords	Adjuvants, Immunologic, Antigens, Neoplasm, CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes, Cancer Vaccines, Melanoma, Experimental
Abstract	Personalized cancer vaccines targeting patient-specific neoantigens are a promising cancer treatment modality; however, neoantigen physicochemical variability can present challenges to manufacturing personalized cancer vaccines in an optimal format for inducing anticancer T cells. Here, we developed a vaccine platform (SNP-7/8a) based on charge-modified peptide-TLR-7/8a conjugates that are chemically programmed to self-assemble into nanoparticles of uniform size (~20 nm) irrespective of the peptide antigen composition. This approach provided precise loading of diverse peptide neoantigens linked to TLR-7/8a (adjuvant) in nanoparticles, which increased uptake by and activation of antigen-presenting cells that promote T-cell immunity. Vaccination of mice with SNP-7/8a using predicted neoantigens (n = 179) from three tumor models induced CD8 T cells against ~50% of neoantigens with high predicted MHC-I binding affinity and led to enhanced tumor clearance. SNP-7/8a delivering in silico-designed mock neoantigens also induced CD8 T cells in nonhuman primates. Altogether, SNP-7/8a is a generalizable approach for codelivering peptide antigens and adjuvants in nanoparticles for inducing anticancer T-cell immunity.
DOI	10.1038/s41587-019-0390-x
PubMed ID	31932728
PubMed Central ID	PMC7065950