Glioblastoma vaccines: past, present, and opportunities
Zujian Xiong,
Itay Raphael,
Michael Olin,
Hideho Okada,
Xuejun Li,
Gary Kohanbash
Affiliations
Zujian Xiong
Department of Neurological Surgery, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA 15201, USA; Xiangya School of Medicine, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410008, PR China
Itay Raphael
Department of Neurological Surgery, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA 15201, USA
Michael Olin
Department of Pediatrics, Masonic Cancer Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA
Hideho Okada
Department of Neurological Surgery, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA
Xuejun Li
Department of Neurosurgery, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410008, PR China; Hunan International Scientific and Technological Cooperation Base of Brain Tumor Research, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410008 PR China; Corresponding author. Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, 87 Xiangya Road, Hunan 410008, PR China.
Gary Kohanbash
Department of Neurological Surgery, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA 15201, USA; Department of Immunology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA; Corresponding author. University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, 7128 Rangos Research Building, 530 45th St., Pittsburgh, PA 15201, USA.
Summary: Glioblastoma (GBM) is one of the most lethal central nervous systems (CNS) tumours in adults. As supplements to standard of care (SOC), various immunotherapies improve the therapeutic effect in other cancers. Among them, tumour vaccines can serve as complementary monotherapy or boost the clinical efficacy with other immunotherapies, such as immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) and chimeric antigen receptor T cells (CAR-T) therapy. Previous studies in GBM therapeutic vaccines have suggested that few neoantigens could be targeted in GBM due to low mutation burden, and single-peptide therapeutic vaccination had limited efficacy in tumour control as monotherapy. Combining diverse antigens, including neoantigens, tumour-associated antigens (TAAs), and pathogen-derived antigens, and optimizing vaccine design or vaccination strategy may help with clinical efficacy improvement. In this review, we discussed current GBM therapeutic vaccine platforms, evaluated and potential antigenic targets, current challenges, and perspective opportunities for efficacy improvement.
