Scientific Reports (Sep 2021)

Peptide-HLA-based immunotherapeutics platforms for direct modulation of antigen-specific T cells

  • Ronald D. Seidel,
  • Zohra Merazga,
  • Dharma Raj Thapa,
  • Jonathan Soriano,
  • Emily Spaulding,
  • Ahmet S. Vakkasoglu,
  • Paige Ruthardt,
  • Wynona Bautista,
  • Steven N. Quayle,
  • Peter A. Kiener,
  • Simon Low,
  • John F. Ross,
  • Saso Cemerski,
  • Anish Suri,
  • Steven C. Almo,
  • Rodolfo J. Chaparro

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-98716-z
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 8

Abstract

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Abstract Targeted pharmacologic activation of antigen-specific (AgS) T cells may bypass limitations inherent in current T cell-based cancer therapies. We describe two immunotherapeutics platforms for selective delivery of costimulatory ligands and peptide-HLA (pHLA) to AgS T cells. We engineered and deployed on these platforms an affinity-attenuated variant of interleukin-2, which selectively expands oligoclonal and polyfunctional AgS T cells in vitro and synergizes with CD80 signals for superior proliferation versus peptide stimulation.