PubMed ID: 37216491
Author(s): Zhang Y, Rahman MM, Clark PA, Sriramaneni RN, Havighurst T, Kerr CP, Zhu M, Jones J, Wang X, Kim K, Gong S, Morris ZS. In Situ Vaccination Following Intratumoral Injection of IL2 and Poly-l-lysine/Iron Oxide/CpG Nanoparticles to a Radiated Tumor Site. ACS Nano. 2023 Jun 13;17(11):10236-10251. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.3c00418. Epub 2023 May 22. PMID 37216491
Journal: Acs Nano, Volume 17, Issue 11, Jun 2023
The in situ vaccine effect of radiation therapy (RT) has been shown to be limited in both preclinical and clinical settings, possibly due to the inadequacy of RT alone to stimulate in situ vaccination in immunologically “cold” tumor microenvironments (TMEs) and the mixed effects of RT in promoting tumor infiltration of both effector and suppressor immune cells. To address these limitations, we combined intratumoral injection of the radiated site with IL2 and a multifunctional nanoparticle (PIC). The local injection of these agents produced a cooperative effect that favorably immunomodulated the irradiated TME, enhancing the activation of tumor-infiltrating T cells and improving systemic anti-tumor T cell immunity. In syngeneic murine tumor models, the PIC+IL2+RT combination significantly improved the tumor response, surpassing the single or dual combinations of these treatments. Furthermore, this treatment led to the activation of tumor-specific immune memory and improved abscopal effects. Our findings suggest that this strategy can be used to augment the in situ vaccine effect of RT in clinical settings.