Personalized neoantigen pulsed dendritic cell vaccine for advanced lung cancer

Neoantigens are considered to be ultimate target of tumor immunotherapy due to their high tumor specificity and immunogenicity.Dendritic cell(DCs)vaccines based on neoantigens have exciting effects in treatment of some malignant tumors and are a promising therapeutic modality.Lung cancer is a lethal disease with the highest morbidity and mortality rate in the world.Despite the rapid development of targeted therapy and immune checkpoint inhibitors for lung cancer in recent years,their efficacy is still unsatisfactory overall.Therefore,there is an urgent unmet clinical need for lung cancer treatment.Here,we attempted to treat lung cancer using a personalized neoantigen peptide-pulsed autologous DC vaccine and conducted a single-arm,2 medical centers,pilot study initiated by the investigator(ChiCTR-ONC 16009100,NCT02956551).The patients enrolled were patients with heavily treated metastatic lung cancer.Candidate neoantigens were derived from whole-exome sequencing and RNA sequencing of fresh biopsy tissues as well as bioinformatics analysis.A total of 12 patients were enrolled in this study.A total of 85 vaccine treatments were administered with a median value of 5 doses/person(range:3-14 doses/person).In total,12-30 peptide-based neoantigens were selected for each patient.AIl treatment-related adverse events were grade 1-2 and there were no delays in dosing due to toxic effects.The objective effectiveness rate was 25%;the disease control rate was 75%;the median progression-free survival was 5.5 months and the median overall survival was 7.9 months.This study provides new evidence for neoantigen vaccine therapy and new therapeutic opportunities for lung cancer treatment.

Therapeutic effects of a novel BAFF blocker on arthritis

B-cell targeted therapy is effective for autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus and rheumatoid arthritis(RA),although there are setbacks in RA clinical trials.In this study,we designed a novel B-cell activating factor(BAFF)antagonist:BAFF-Trap,a recombinant glycoprotein with BAFF-binding domains of two BAFF receptors(TACI and Br3)linked to Fc domain of human IgG1.Unlike TACI-Fc,BAFF-Trap bound BAFF but not APRIL(a proliferation-inducing ligand),and significantly suppressed the development of collagen-induced arthritis and adjuvant-induced arthritis.Furthermore,BAFF-Trap inhibited proinflammatory cytokine expression,ameliorated joint damage and suppressed B-and T-cell activation.BAFF-Trap reduced dendritic cells in joints,and increased regulatory T cell,regulatory B-cell,and M2 macrophage.The function of BAFF-Trap was related to inhibition of canonical and noncanonical NF-κB activation.Thus,BAFF-Trap may be a valuable agent for the effective treatment of RA.