Search

PDF file - 100K, PBMCs were isolated from patients before and circa one month after treatment and pulsed with an adenovirus-derived peptide pool and analyzed with IFN-gamma ELISPOT.

Purpose: Multiple injections of oncolytic adenovirus could enhance immunologic response. In the first part of this article, the focus was on immunologic aspects. Sixty patients previously naïve to oncolytic virus and who had white blood cells available were treated. Thirty-nine of 60 were assessed after a single virus administration, whereas 21 of 60 received a “serial treatment” consisting of three injections within 10 weeks. In the second part, we focused on 115 patients treated with a granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM–CSF)–coding capsid chimeric adenovirus, CGTG-102.Results: Following serial treatment, both increase and decrease in antitumor T cells in blood were seen more frequently, findings which are compatible with induction of T-cell immunity and trafficking of T cells to tumors, respectively. Safety was good in both groups. In 115 patients treated with CGTG-102 (Ad5/3-D24-GMCSF), median overall survival was 111 days following single and 277 days after serial treatment in nonrandomized comparison. Switching the virus capsid for avoiding neutralizing antibodies in a serial treatment featuring three different viruses did not impact safety or efficacy. A correlation between antiviral and antitumor T cells was seen (P = 0.001), suggesting that viral oncolysis can result in epitope spreading and breaking of tumor-associated immunologic tolerance. Alternatively, some patients may be more susceptible to induction of T-cell immunity and/or trafficking.Conclusions: These results provide the first human data linking antiviral immunity with antitumor immunity, implying that oncolytic viruses could have an important role in cancer immunotherapy. Clin Cancer Res; 19(10); 2734–44. ©2013 AACR.

PDF file - 62K, Adverse reactions of all CGTG-102 patients.

PDF file - 67K, Adverse reactions in patients na�ve to oncolytic adenovirus.

PDF file - 77K

Purpose: Twenty-one patients with cancer were treated with a single round of oncolytic adenovirus ICOVIR-7.Experimental Design: ICOVIR-7 features an RGD-4C modification of the fiber HI-loop of serotype 5 adenovirus for enhanced entry into tumor cells. Tumor selectivity is mediated by an insulator, a modified E2F promoter, and a Rb-binding site deletion of E1A, whereas replication is optimized with E2F binding hairpins and a Kozak sequence. ICOVIR-7 doses ranged from 2 × 1010 to 1 × 1012 viral particles. All patients had advanced and metastatic solid tumors refractory to standard therapies.Results: ICOVIR-7 treatment was well tolerated with mild to moderate fever, fatigue, elevated liver transaminases, chills, and hyponatremia. One patient had grade 3 anemia but no other serious side effects were seen. At baseline, 9 of 21 of patients had neutralizing antibody titers against the ICOVIR-7 capsid. Treatment resulted in neutralizing antibody titer induction within 4 weeks in 16 of 18 patients. No elevations of serum proinflammatory cytokine levels were detected. Viral genomes were detected in the circulation in 18 of 21 of patients after injection and 7 of 15 of the samples were positive 2 to 4 weeks later suggesting viral replication.Conclusions: Overall, objective evidence of antitumor activity was seen in 9 of 17 evaluable patients. In radiological analyses, 5 of 12 evaluable patients had stabilization or reduction in tumor size. These consisted of one partial response, two minor responses and two cases of stable disease, all occurring in patients who had progressive disease before treatment. In summary, ICOVIR-7 treatment is apparently safe, resulting in anticancer activity, and is therefore promising for further clinical testing. Clin Cancer Res; 16(11); 3035–43. ©2010 AACR.

PDF file - 889K, Individual anti-tumor (survivin) and anti-viral (Ad5) ELISPOT results in single (A) and serial (B) treated patients.

PDF file - 71K, Characteristics of patients na�ve to oncolytic adenovirus.

PDF file - 94K, The phenotypic panel of circulating white blood cells.

PDF file - 95K, A panel of proinflammatory cytokines was analyzed to evaluate the safety of treatment.

Supplementary Data from Oncolytic Adenovirus ICOVIR-7 in Patients with Advanced and Refractory Solid Tumors

PDF file - 141K, Example of progressive inflammation in serial treatment.

PDF file - 48K, Description of disease at the time of first treatment.

Supplementary Figures 1-6, Tables 1-3 from Oncolytic Adenovirus Coding for Granulocyte Macrophage Colony-Stimulating Factor Induces Antitumoral Immunity in Cancer Patients

PDF file - 1MB, PBMCs of a healthy donor was stimulated with supernatant collected from virus (CGTG-401 or control virus not coding CD40L) infected A549 lung cancer cells and IL-8 production was assessed 12, 24, 48, and 72 h later with FACSArray. The increase demonstrated at later time points indicates biological activity of the virus produced CD40L.

PDF file - 1.1MB, (A) Patient serum samples were analyzed for Th1 induced cytokines interferon-� (IFN-�), tumor necrosis factor-� (TNF-�) and interleukin-2 (IL-2) and Th2 cytokines interleukin-4 (IL-4), interleukin-5 (IL-5) and Interleukin 10 (IL-10). The ratio between Th1 and Th2 type cytokines was assessed. Cytokines levels are reported relative to their baseline level, which was set as 1 and a ratio between Th1/Th2 was calculated for each time point. (B) Malignant ascites of patient R8 and pleural effusion of patient T181 were analyzed for Th1 induced cytokines IFN-� and IL-2, and for Th2 induced IL-10 before and after treatment.

PDF file - 1.2MB, Blood samples for all 9 patients were collected before (baseline) and at several time points after the treatment. Soluble CD40L (sCD40L) and RANTES concentrations in the serum were assessed. Data are presented as median � SD.

Granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GMCSF) can mediate antitumor effects by recruiting natural killer cells and by induction of tumor-specific cytotoxic T-cells through antigen-presenting cells. Oncolytic tumor cell–killing can produce a potent costimulatory danger signal and release of tumor epitopes for antigen-presenting cell sampling. Therefore, an oncolytic adenovirus coding for GMCSF was engineered and shown to induce tumor-specific immunity in an immunocompetent syngeneic hamster model. Subsequently, 20 patients with advanced solid tumors refractory to standard therapies were treated with Ad5-D24-GMCSF. Of the 16 radiologically evaluable patients, 2 had complete responses, 1 had a minor response, and 5 had disease stabilization. Responses were frequently seen in injected and noninjected tumors. Treatment was well tolerated and resulted in the induction of both tumor-specific and virus-specific immunity as measured by ELISPOT and pentamer analysis. This is the first time that oncolytic virus–mediated antitumor immunity has been shown in humans. Ad5-D24-GMCSF is promising for further clinical testing. Cancer Res; 70(11); 4297–309. ©2010 AACR.

PDF file - 64K, Adverse reactions. 9 patients total, 6 received concomitant low-lose cyclophosphamide 50 mg/d, 3 did not. Numbers of patients experiencing the reaction at any time during their treatment (including 28d follow-up) is shown. The data is shown for the two subgroups separately in parentheses (cyclophosphamide/none).

PDF file - 41K, Response evaluation of injected and non-injected lesions.

PDF file - 58K, Prior therapies.

PDF file - 2MB, Serum levels for (A) IL-6, (B) IL-8, (C) IL-10, (D) IL-12, (E) TNF-alpha, and (F) IFN-gamma was assessed before and after the treatment. Data are presented separately for patients receiving virus treatment with or without concomitant low dose cyclophosphamide (50 mg/d) and shown as median � SD. NA, sample not available.

PDF file - 69K, Description of historical controls (Pesonen et al. Gene Ther 2010;17:892-904) treated with unarmed oncolytic adenovirus Ad5/3-cox2L-D24.

The immunosuppressive environment of advanced tumors is a primary obstacle to the efficacy of immunostimulatory and vaccine approaches. Here, we report an approach to arm an oncolytic virus with CD40 ligand (CD40L) to stimulate beneficial immunologic responses in patients. A double-targeted chimeric adenovirus controlled by the hTERT promoter and expressing CD40L (CGTG-401) was constructed and nine patients with progressing advanced solid tumors refractory to standard therapies were treated intratumorally. No serious adverse events resulting in patient hospitalization occurred. Moderate or no increases in neutralizing antibodies were seen, suggesting effective Th1 immunologic effects. An assessment of the blood levels of virus indicated 17.5% of the samples (n = 40) were positive at a low level early after treatment, but not thereafter. In contrast, high levels of virus, CD40L, and RANTES were documented locally at the tumor. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells were analyzed by IFN-γ ELISPOT analysis and induction of both survivin-specific and adenovirus-specific T cells was seen. Antitumor T-cell responses were even more pronounced when assessed by intracellular cytokine staining after stimulation with tumor type–specific peptide pools. Of the evaluable patients, 83% displayed disease control at 3 months and in both cases in which treatment was continued the effect was sustained for at least 8 months. Injected and noninjected lesions responded identically. Together, these findings support further clinical evaluation of CGTG-401. Cancer Res; 72(7); 1621–31. ©2012 AACR.

Tumor cell autophagy appears useful for cancer therapeutics due to immunogenic cell death and possible induction of antitumor immunity. Oncolytic adenoviruses and alkylating chemotherapeutic temozolomide have been shown to induce autophagic cell death preclinically. We studied safety, efficacy and immunological effects of oncolytic adenovirus combined with low-dose pulse of temozolomide. Metronomic low-dose cyclophosphamide was added to treatments to selectively reduce regulatory T-cells. We assessed the combination of oncolytic adenovirus with low-dose temozolomide and cyclophosphamide in breast and prostate cancer cells in vitro. Immunogenicity of cell death was studied by calreticulin exposure, adenosine triphosphate release, and nuclear protein high-mobility group box-1 (HMGB1) secretion assays. Efficacy was further tested in a prostate cancer xenograft mouse model, and tumors were assessed for autophagy by electron microscopy and LC3-immunohistochemistry. Furthermore, 41 combination treatments were given to 17 chemotherapy-refractory cancer patients in the context of an advanced therapy access program. The primary end-point was safety. In addition, autophagy assays, immunological analyses, and efficacy parameters were studied. Combination therapy resulted in increased cytotoxicity and immunogenic cell death. Autophagy induction was associated with enhanced tumor-growth inhibition in combination-treated prostate tumors (P Low-dose pulse of temozolomide and cyclophosphamide in combination with oncolytic adenovirus increased autophagy, elicited antitumor T-cell activations, and showed promising safety and efficacy. Our results support the hypothesis that oncolysis and chemotherapy mediated autophagy might lead to antitumor immunity. Oncolytic adenovirus together with autophagy-inducing temozolomide is an attractive combination for future clinical studies. Citation Format: Ilkka Liikanen, Laura Ahtiainen, Mari L.M, Hirvinen, Simona Barmante, Vincenzo Cerullo, Petri Nokisalmi, Otto Hemminki, Iulia Diaconu, Sari Pesonen, Anniina Koski, Lotta Kangasniemi, Saila K. Pesonen, Minna Oksanen, Fang Zhao, Leena Laasonen, Kaarina Partanen, Timo Joensuu, Anna Kanerva, Akseli Hemminki. Oncolytic adenovirus with low-dose temozolomide induces autophagy and antitumor immune responses preclinically and in cancer patients. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 3304. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-3304