Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Conforti, Antonella
• Salvatori, Erika
• Lione, Lucia
• Compagnone, Mirco
• Pinto, Eleonora
• Shorrock, Clay
• Hayward, James A
• Sun, Yuhua
• Liang, Ben Minghwa
• Palombo, Fabio
• Viscount, Brian
• Aurisicchio, Luigi

Titel

Linear DNA amplicons as a novel cancer vaccine strategy

Ist Teil von

• Journal of experimental & clinical cancer research, 2022-06, Vol.41 (1), p.195-195, Article 195

Ort / Verlag

England: BioMed Central Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2022

Quelle

Springer LINK

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• DNA-based vaccines represent a simple, safe and promising strategy for harnessing the immune system to fight infectious diseases as well as various forms of cancer and thus are considered an important tool in the cancer immunotherapy toolbox. Nonetheless, the manufacture of plasmid DNA vaccines has several drawbacks, including long lead times and the need to remove impurities from bacterial cultures. Here we report the development of polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-produced amplicon expression vectors as DNA vaccines and their in vivo application to elicit antigen-specific immune responses in animal cancer models. Plasmid DNA and amplicon expression was assessed both in vitro, by Hela cells transfection, and in vivo, by evaluating luciferase expression in wild-type mice through optical imaging. Immunogenicity induced by DNA amplicons was assessed by vaccinating wild-type mice against a tumor-associated antigen, whereas the antitumoral effect of DNA amplicons was evaluated in a murine cancer model in combination with immune-checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). Amplicons encoding tumor-associated-antigens, such as telomerase reverse transcriptase or neoantigens expressed by murine tumor cell lines, were able to elicit antigen-specific immune responses and proved to significantly impact tumor growth when administered in combination with ICIs. These results strongly support the further exploration of the use of PCR-based amplicons as an innovative immunotherapeutic approach to cancer treatment.