Patent Application
20220307087
Cancer immunotherapy through checkpoint blockade and T cell-based approaches has produced impressive and durable clinical benefits for cancer patients. Increasing evidence indicates that tumor regression induced by checkpoint blockade therapy relies on the recognition of mutation-derived neoantigens expressed by cancer cells. Mutational landscape of cancer patients is the strong prediction biomarker for checkpoint blockade therapy. Despite the larger numbers (several hundreds) of somatic mutations can be identified from each cancer tissue to serve as neoantigens, only a few (1-3 immunogenic epitopes per cancer patient) have been identified for T cell recognition. What are needed are new methods for identifying neoantigens and methods and compositions for using neoantigens identified by said methods.
Disclosed are methods and compositions related to identifying novel neoantigens, and methods of using said neoantigens in the treatment of cancer.
In one aspect, disclosed herein are methods of identifying neoantigens from a cancer in a human subject comprising a) performing whole exome sequencing on a nucleic acid sample from a cancer cell; b) mapping the sequence to a reference genome sequence (such as, for example a human genome); c) filtering sequence variations to remove common variations in tumors and normal cells; d) creating one or more single mutation peptide constructs comprising at least one uncommon amino acid variation and one or more flanking amino acids; e) synthesizing one or more minigenes encoding one or more single mutation peptide constructs of step d; f) transfecting one or more minigenes into one or more cells or cell lines expressing MHC class I or MHC class II molecules; g) co-culturing one or more T cells or T cells lines with the transfected cells of step f); h) measuring T cell activity of the co-cultured T cells or T cell lines; i) and assaying single mutation peptides from each minigene in transfected cell lines that induced T cell activity for the ability to induce T cell activity alone.
In one aspect, also disclosed herein are methods of identifying neoantigens of any preceding aspect, further comprising mapping the mutation to a specific peptide epitope and/or further comprising assaying the HLA restriction of the peptide epitope.
Also disclosed herein are methods of identifying neoantigens of any preceding aspect, wherein the single mutation constructs comprise at least 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, or 25 amino acids on either side of the mutation.
Also disclosed herein are methods of identifying neoantigens of any preceding aspect, wherein the minigene comprises at least 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, or 25 single mutation constructs.
In one aspect, also disclosed herein are methods of identifying neoantigens of any preceding aspect, wherein the one or more cell or cell lines (such as, for example HEK293 cells, HEK293T cells, Cos-7, MA104 cells, CHO cells, Fibroblasts, B cells, VERO cells, Madin-Darby Canine Kidney (MDCK) cells, HEp-2 cells, HeLa cells, MRC-5 cells, WI-38 cells, EB66, or PER C6 cells) expressing MHC class I or class II molecules, are engineered to express an MHC molecule.
Also disclosed herein are methods of identifying neoantigens of any preceding aspect, wherein the T cell activity (such as, for example, release of cytokines including, but not limited to IFN-γ, TGF-β, lymphotoxin-α, IL-2, IL-4, IL-10, IL-17, or IL-25) is measured by ELISA, ELISpot, Intracellular cytokine staining, or Chromium Release.
In one aspect, also disclosed herein are methods of identifying neoantigens of any preceding aspect, wherein the cancer is selected from the group consisting of B cell lymphoma, T cell lymphoma, mycosis fungoides, Hodgkin's Disease, myeloid leukemia, bladder cancer, brain cancer, nervous system cancer, head and neck cancer, squamous cell carcinoma of head and neck, lung cancers, small cell lung cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, neuroblastoma, glioblastoma, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, skin cancers, melanoma, basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, liver cancer, squamous cell carcinomas of the mouth, throat, larynx, and lung, cervical cancer, cervical carcinoma, breast cancer, renal cancer, genitourinary cancer, pulmonary cancer, esophageal carcinoma, head and neck carcinoma, large bowel cancer, hematopoietic cancers; testicular cancer; colon and rectal cancers, prostatic cancer, AIDS-related lymphomas, or AIDS-related sarcomas.
In one aspect, also disclosed herein are neoantigens (including, but not limited to peptides, polypeptides, and proteins of the neoantigens) identified by the methods of identifying neoantigens of any preceding aspect. For example, disclosed herein are a peptides, polypeptides, or proteins comprising the amino acid sequence AEPKRKSSLFWHAFNRLTPFRK (SEQ ID NO: 2) or a fragment thereof comprising at least 9 amino acids, wherein any fragment of the peptide, polypeptide, or proteinat least comprises the sequence LFWHAFNRL (SEQ ID NO: 7) (for example, SSLFWHAFNRLTP (SEQ ID NO: 4), RKSSLFWHAFNRL (SEQ ID NO: 3), RKSSLFWHAFNRLTPFR (SEQ ID NO: 6), and LFWHAFNRLTPFR (SEQ ID NO: 5); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence FQLLLEKPFQIFCAELWVRDINDHA (SEQ ID NO: 9) or a fragment thereof comprising at least 13 amino acids, wherein any fragment of the polypeptide at least comprises the sequence LEKPFQIFCAELW (SEQ ID NO: 12); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence ENSPLGTEFPLNYALDLDVGSNNVQ (SEQ ID NO: 14) or a fragment thereof comprising at least 13 amino acids, wherein any fragment of the polypeptide at least comprises the sequence LGTEFPLNYALDL (SEQ ID NO: 17); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence MTDDKDVLRNVWFGRIPTCFT (SEQ ID NO: 19) or a fragment thereof comprising at least 11 amino acids, wherein any fragment of the polypeptide at least comprises the sequence KDVLRNVWFGR (SEQ ID NO: 23) (for example, DDKDVLRNVWFGR (SEQ ID NO: 22), KDVLRNVWFGRIP (SEQ ID NO: 21), and DDKDVLRNVWFGRIP (SEQ ID NO: 24)); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence RLKASLDRPFTNSESAFYSIVGLSS (SEQ ID NO: 26) or a fragment thereof comprising at least 11 amino acids, wherein any fragment of the polypeptide at least comprises the sequence RPFTNSESAFY (SEQ ID NO: 30) (for example, DRPFTNSESAFYS (SEQ ID NO: 28)); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence GSGEKVAGRVIVKVCEVTRVKAVRI (SEQ ID NO: 32) or a fragment thereof comprising at least 9 amino acids, wherein any fragment of the polypeptide at least comprises the sequence RVIVKVCEV (SEQ ID NO: 36) (for example, KVAGRVIVKVCEV (SEQ ID NO: 33), AGRVIVKVCEVTR (SEQ ID NO: 34), KVAGRVIVKVCEVTRVK (SEQ ID NO: 32), and RVIVKVCEVTRVK (SEQ ID NO: 35)); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence YGMYFCMNISSQEDGACVLLRALEP (SEQ ID NO: 39) or a fragment thereof comprising at least 10 amino acids, wherein any fragment of the polypeptide at least comprises the sequence ISSQEDGACV (SEQ ID NO: 43)(for example, MNISSQEDGACVL (SEQ ID NO: 41), ISSQEDGACVLLR (SEQ ID NO: 42), MNISSQEDGACVLLR (SEQ ID NO: 44), ISSQEDGACVL (SEQ ID NO: 132), ISSQEDGACVLL (SEQ ID NO: 133), NISSQEDGACV (SEQ ID NO: 134), NISSQEDGACVL (SEQ ID NO: 135), NISSQEDGACVLL, (SEQ ID NO: 136), NISSQEDGACVLLR (SEQ ID NO: 137), and MNISSQEDGACVLL (SEQ ID NO: 138)); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence MKLTSLMCNPVKSPFFGCVCGHVPISMCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQVGA (SEQ ID NO: 46) or a fragment thereof comprising at least 26 amino acids, wherein any fragment of the polypeptide at least comprises the sequence VSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQV (SEQ ID NO: 60) (for example, MCNPVKSPFFGCVCGHVPISMCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQVGA (SEQ ID NO: 49), KSPFFGCVCGHVPISMCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQVGA (SEQ ID NO: 50), GCVCGHVPISMCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQVGA (SEQ ID NO: 51), GHVPISMCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQVGA (SEQ ID NO: 52), SMCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQVGA (SEQ ID NO: 53), VSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQVGA (SEQ ID NO: 54), MCNPVKSPFFGCVCGHVPISMCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQV (SEQ ID NO: 57), VSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQVG (SEQ ID NO: 139), CVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQV (SEQ ID NO: 140), MCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQV (SEQ ID NO: 141), MCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQVG (SEQ ID NO: 142), SMCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQV (SEQ ID NO: 143), and SMCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQVG (SEQ ID NO: 144)); and/or a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence MLMAQEALAFLMAQGAMLAAQERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRR MEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSRRPWKRSWSAGSCPGMPHRSPDQGRF (SEQ ID NO: 67) or a fragment thereof comprising at least 61 amino acids, wherein any fragment of the polypeptide at least comprises the sequence VPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSRR (SEQ ID NO: 73) (for example, QERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRC LSRRPWKR (SEQ ID NO: 74), RVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSR R (SEQ ID NO: 145), RRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLS RR (SEQ ID NO: 146), ERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCL SRR (SEQ ID NO: 147), QERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRC LSRR (SEQ ID NO: 148), RVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSR RP (SEQ ID NO: 149), RRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLS RRP (SEQ ID NO: 150), ERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCL SRRP (SEQ ID NO: 151), QERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRC LSRRP (SEQ ID NO: 152), RVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSR RPW (SEQ ID NO: 153), RRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLS RRPW (SEQ ID NO: 154), ERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCL SRRPW (SEQ ID NO: 155), QERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRC LSRRPW (SEQ ID NO: 156), RVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSR RPWK (SEQ ID NO: 157), RRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLS RRPWK (SEQ ID NO: 158), ERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCL SRRPWK (SEQ ID NO: 159), QERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRC LSRRPWK (SEQ ID NO: 160), RVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSR RPWKR (SEQ ID NO: 161), RRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLS RRPWKR (SEQ ID NO: 162), ERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCL SRRPWKR (SEQ ID NO: 163), EALAFLMAQGAMLAAQERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPA GPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSRRPWKRSWSAGSCPGMPHRSP (SEQ ID NO: 61), EALAFLMAQGAMLAAQERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPA GPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSRRPWKRSWSAGSCPGM (SEQ ID NO: 62), EALAFLMAQGAMLAAQERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPA GPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSRRPWKRSWSAG (SEQ ID NO: 63), EALAFLMAQGAMLAAQERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPA GPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSRRPWKR (SEQ ID NO: 64), LMAQGAMLAAQERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGG RTAACLSCTSRCLSRRPWKRSWSAGSCPGMPHRSPDQGRF (SEQ ID NO: 68), AMLAAQERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACL SCTSRCLSRRPWKRSWSAGSCPGMPHRSPDQGRF (SEQ ID NO: 69), and QERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRC LSRRPWKRSWSAGSCPGMPHRSPDQGRF (SEQ ID NO: 70)). Also disclosed herein are variants of any polypeptide or polypeptide fragment disclosed herein wherein the variant comprises a conservative amino acid substitution.
In one aspect, also disclosed herein are nucleic acids encoding a polypeptide neoantigen of any preceding aspect.
Also disclosed herein are compositions comprising a therapeutically effective amount of one or more of the neoantigens of any preceding aspect (including, but not limited to peptides, polypeptides, and proteins of the neoantigens) or one or more minigene mRNAs encoding one or more neoantigens of any preceding aspect.
Also disclosed herein are compositions comprising a therapeutically effective amount of one or more chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells, T cell receptor (TCR) T-cells, and/or tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs); wherein the CAR T cell, TCR T cell, and/or TIL has been engineered to express a receptor (such as, for example, a T cell receptor or chimeric antigen receptor) that recognizes one or more of the neoantigens of any preceding aspect (including, but not limited to peptides, polypeptides, and proteins of the neoantigens). In one aspect, the TCR T cell, CAR T cell, or TIL specific for one or more of the neoantigens of any preceding aspect is further engineered to knockout or knockdown Zinc finger and BTB domain-containing protein 7B (ThPOK), Lysine-specific histone demethylase 1 (LSD1), programmed cell death protein (PD1), Proteine phosphatase 2 (PP2A) to enhance their function such as cytotoxic activity and persistence or survival in vivo after adoptive transfer to a cancer patient. In one aspect, the TCR T cell, CAR T cell, or TIL specific for one or more of the neoantigens of any preceding aspect is treated with a small molecular inhibitor such 2-PAPC to enhance T cell cytotoxic activity or the ability to proliferate and survive in vivo.
In one aspect, also disclosed herein are methods of stimulating an immunological response against a cancer or treating, inhibiting, and/or preventing a cancer comprising administering to a subject a composition comprising a therapeutically effective amount of a neoantigen of any preceding aspect (including, but not limited to peptides, polypeptides, and proteins of the neoantigens) and/or identified by the method of identifying a neoantigen of any preceding aspect.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate several embodiments and together with the description illustrate the disclosed compositions and methods.
Before the present compounds, compositions, articles, devices, and/or methods are disclosed and described, it is to be understood that they are not limited to specific synthetic methods or specific recombinant biotechnology methods unless otherwise specified, or to particular reagents unless otherwise specified, as such may, of course, vary. It is also to be understood that the terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting.
As used in the specification and the appended claims, the singular forms “a,” “an” and “the” include plural referents unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Thus, for example, reference to “a pharmaceutical carrier” includes mixtures of two or more such carriers, and the like.
Ranges can be expressed herein as from “about” one particular value, and/or to “about” another particular value. When such a range is expressed, another embodiment includes from the one particular value and/or to the other particular value. Similarly, when values are expressed as approximations, by use of the antecedent “about,” it will be understood that the particular value forms another embodiment. It will be further understood that the endpoints of each of the ranges are significant both in relation to the other endpoint, and independently of the other endpoint. It is also understood that there are a number of values disclosed herein, and that each value is also herein disclosed as “about” that particular value in addition to the value itself. For example, if the value “10” is disclosed, then “about 10” is also disclosed. It is also understood that when a value is disclosed that “less than or equal to” the value, “greater than or equal to the value” and possible ranges between values are also disclosed, as appropriately understood by the skilled artisan. For example, if the value “10” is disclosed the “less than or equal to 10” as well as “greater than or equal to 10” is also disclosed. It is also understood that the throughout the application, data is provided in a number of different formats, and that this data, represents endpoints and starting points, and ranges for any combination of the data points. For example, if a particular data point “10” and a particular data point 15 are disclosed, it is understood that greater than, greater than or equal to, less than, less than or equal to, and equal to 10 and 15 are considered disclosed as well as between 10 and 15. It is also understood that each unit between two particular units are also disclosed. For example, if 10 and 15 are disclosed, then 11, 12, 13, and 14 are also disclosed.
In this specification and in the claims which follow, reference will be made to a number of terms which shall be defined to have the following meanings:
“Optional” or “optionally” means that the subsequently described event or circumstance may or may not occur, and that the description includes instances where said event or circumstance occurs and instances where it does not.
The term “subject” refers to any individual who is the target of administration or treatment. The subject can be a vertebrate, for example, a mammal. In one aspect, the subject can be human, non-human primate, bovine, equine, porcine, canine, or feline. The subject can also be a guinea pig, rat, hamster, rabbit, mouse, or mole. Thus, the subject can be a human or veterinary patient. The term “patient” refers to a subject under the treatment of a clinician, e.g., physician.
Throughout this application, various publications are referenced. The disclosures of these publications in their entireties are hereby incorporated by reference into this application in order to more fully describe the state of the art to which this pertains. The references disclosed are also individually and specifically incorporated by reference herein for the material contained in them that is discussed in the sentence in which the reference is relied upon.
Although in vitro stimulation of T cells from normal healthy donors with neoantigen peptides could increase the number of neoantigens capable of activating T cells, prior to the present disclosure it remained unknown about the number and recognition pattern of neoantigens by T cells in cancer patients. Furthermore, it was largely unknown whether a single T cell receptor (TCR) can recognize two or multiple neoantigens in cancer patients. Despite recent identification of many HLA class I-restricted neoantigens using exome sequencing and computer-assisted prediction programs, increasing evidence demonstrates that neoantigen-specific CD4+ T cells are more dominant than neoantigen-specific CD8+ T cells, and play a critical role in tumor regression. However, the current prediction programs in use in the art for MHC II-restricted neoantigens are not accurate and much poorer than the prediction programs of MHC I-restricted neoantigens due to the open pockets of MHC II molecules, thus limiting the ability to identify neoantigens and develop neoantigen-based immunotherapy.
Tumor regression induced by checkpoint blockade therapy and T cell-based immunotherapy relies on T-cell recognition of tumor antigens, particularly mutation-derived neoantigens, expressed by cancer cells. However, despite the larger numbers of somatic mutations identified in cancer tissues that could generate neoantigens, only a few immunogenic peptide epitopes (per cancer patient) for T-cell recognition have been reported. The underlying mechanisms of these observations remain poorly understood. Herein identification of four MHC class II-restricted neoantigens and two MHC class I-restricted neoantigens is reported. Further analysis of neoantigens for recognition by CD4+ T-cell clones revealed the dominance of one neoantigen, which was recognized by 87% of the T-cell clones, while several low-frequency T-cell clones recognized 3 additional neoantigens. Overall, 98% of the CD4+ T cells recognized neoantigens, compared with only 34% of the CD8+ T cell clones. Additionally, 2 T-cell clones did not recognize mutation-derived neoantigen, but instead recognized neoepitopes derived from gene products translated from the 3′ untranslated region of the ADIPOR2 gene or from an alternative open reading frame of LAGE1b. Finally, it was demonstrated herein that a single TCR can recognize two neoantigens, but not other antigens in normal cells. Also demonstrated was the utility and power of neoantigen-specific T cells in inhibiting tumor growth. The findings have identified immune regulatory mechanisms that restrain T-cell response to a limited number of neoantigens with one as dominant, and should have important implications in personalized immunotherapy that targets dominant neoantigens and TCRs with multiple neoantigen specificity.
In one aspect, disclosed herein are methods of identifying neoantigens from a cancer in a human subject comprising a) exome sequencing on a nucleic acid sample from a cancer cell (in some instances the method can further comprise isolating DNA from cancer cells, capturing DNA fragments, and constructing an exome library); b) mapping the sequencing result to a reference genome sequence data (for example human genome GRCh38/hg38); c) filtering sequence variations to remove common variations in tumors and normal cells; d) creating one or more single mutation peptide constructs comprising at least one uncommon amino acid variation and one or more flanking amino acids; e) synthesizing one or more minigenes encoding one or more single mutation peptide constructs of step d; f) transfecting one or more minigenes into one or more cells or cell lines expressing MHC class I or MHC class II molecules; g) co-culturing one or more T cells or T cells lines with the transfected cells of step f); h) measuring T cell activity of the co-cultured T cells or T cell lines; i) and assaying single mutation peptides from each minigene in transfected cell lines that induced T cell activity for the ability to induce T cell activity alone.
In one aspect, also disclosed herein are methods of identifying any neoantigendisclosed herein, further comprising mapping the mutation to a specific peptide epitope by serial truncation and/or further comprising assaying the HLA restriction of the peptide epitope by HLA antibody blocking.
As noted herein, the single mutation constructs created in the disclosed methods can have one or more amino acids on either or both sides of the mutations. Thus, for example, disclosed herein are methods of identifying any neoantigen disclosed herein, wherein the single mutation constructs comprise at least 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, or 25 amino acids on either side of the mutation.
It is understood and herein contemplated that the minigenes created in the disclosed methods can comprise 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 or more single mutation constructs. Thus, in one aspect, disclosed herein are methods of identifying any neoantigen disclosed herein, wherein the minigene comprises at least 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, or 25 single mutation constructs.
In one aspect, it is understood and herein contemplated that the disclosed also disclosed herein are methods of identifying any neoantigen disclosed herein, wherein the one or more cell or cell lines (such as, for example HEK293 cells, HEK293T cells, Cos-7, MA104 cells, CHO cells, Fibroblasts, B cells, VERO cells, Madin-Darby Canine Kidney (MDCK) cells, HEp-2 cells, HeLa cells, MRC-5 cells, WI-38 cells, EB66, or PER C6 cells) expressing MHC class I or class II molecules, are engineered to express an MHC molecule.
It is understood and herein contemplated that there are numerous methods known in the art for measuring T cell activity that could be used in the disclosed methods of identifying neoantigens, including, but not limited to chromium release assays, ELISA, ELISpot, intracellular cytokine staining, flow cytometry, MHC class I tetramer staining, MHC class II tetramer staining, radioimmunoassay, or other immunoassay. The immunoassays can measure the release of any number of effector cytokines (such as, for example, release of cytokines including, but not limited to IFN-γ, TGF-β, lymphotoxin-α, IL-2, IL-4, IL-10, IL-17, or IL-25) or expression of cell surface markers associated with T cell activation (CD69, CD62L, CD44, CD45 RA, CD45RO, and/or CCR7).
1. Immunoassays and Fluorochromes 52. The steps of various useful immunodetection methods have been described in the scientific literature, such as, e.g., Maggio et al., Enzyme-Immunoassay, (1987) and Nakamura, et al., Enzyme Immunoassays: Heterogeneous and Homogeneous Systems, Handbook of Experimental Immunology, Vol. 1: Immunochemistry, 27.1-27.20 (1986), each of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety and specifically for its teaching regarding immunodetection methods. Immunoassays, in their most simple and direct sense, are binding assays involving binding between antibodies and antigen. Many types and formats of immunoassays are known and all are suitable for detecting the disclosed biomarkers. Examples of immunoassays are enzyme linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs), radioimmunoassays (RIA), radioimmune precipitation assays (RIPA), immunobead capture assays, Western blotting, dot blotting, gel-shift assays, Flow cytometry, protein arrays, multiplexed bead arrays, magnetic capture, in vivo imaging, fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET), and fluorescence recovery/localization after photobleaching (FRAP/FLAP).
In general, immunoassays involve contacting a sample suspected of containing a molecule of interest (such as the disclosed biomarkers) with an antibody to the molecule of interest or contacting an antibody to a molecule of interest (such as antibodies to the disclosed biomarkers) with a molecule that can be bound by the antibody, as the case may be, under conditions effective to allow the formation of immunocomplexes. Contacting a sample with the antibody to the molecule of interest or with the molecule that can be bound by an antibody to the molecule of interest under conditions effective and for a period of time sufficient to allow the formation of immune complexes (primary immune complexes) is generally a matter of simply bringing into contact the molecule or antibody and the sample and incubating the mixture for a period of time long enough for the antibodies to form immune complexes with, i.e., to bind to, any molecules (e.g., antigens) present to which the antibodies can bind. In many forms of immunoassay, the sample-antibody composition, such as a tissue section, ELISA plate, dot blot or Western blot, can then be washed to remove any non-specifically bound antibody species, allowing only those antibodies specifically bound within the primary immune complexes to be detected.
Immunoassays can include methods for detecting or quantifying the amount of a molecule of interest (such as the disclosed biomarkers or their antibodies) in a sample, which methods generally involve the detection or quantitation of any immune complexes formed during the binding process. In general, the detection of immunocomplex formation is well known in the art and can be achieved through the application of numerous approaches. These methods are generally based upon the detection of a label or marker, such as any radioactive, fluorescent, biological or enzymatic tags or any other known label.
As used herein, a label can include a fluorescent dye, a member of a binding pair, such as biotin/streptavidin, a metal (e.g., gold), or an epitope tag that can specifically interact with a molecule that can be detected, such as by producing a colored substrate or fluorescence. Substances suitable for detectably labeling proteins include fluorescent dyes (also known herein as fluorochromes and fluorophores) and enzymes that react with colorometric substrates (e.g., horseradish peroxidase). The use of fluorescent dyes is generally preferred in the practice of the invention as they can be detected at very low amounts. Furthermore, in the case where multiple antigens are reacted with a single array, each antigen can be labeled with a distinct fluorescent compound for simultaneous detection. Labeled spots on the array are detected using a fluorimeter, the presence of a signal indicating an antigen bound to a specific antibody.
Fluorophores are compounds or molecules that luminesce. Typically fluorophores absorb electromagnetic energy at one wavelength and emit electromagnetic energy at a second wavelength. Representative fluorophores include, but are not limited to, 1,5 IAEDANS; 1,8-ANS; 4-Methylumbelliferone; 5-carboxy-2,7-dichlorofluorescein; 5-Carboxyfluorescein (5-FAM); 5-Carboxynapthofluorescein; 5-Carboxytetramethylrhodamine (5-TAMRA); 5-Hydroxy Tryptamine (5-HAT); 5-ROX (carboxy-X-rhodamine); 6-Carboxyrhodamine 6G; 6-CR 6G; 6-JOE; 7-Amino-4-methylcoumarin; 7-Aminoactinomycin D (7-AAD); 7-Hydroxy-4-I methylcoumarin; 9-Amino-6-chloro-2-methoxyacridine (ACMA); ABQ; Acid Fuchsin; Acridine Orange; Acridine Red; Acridine Yellow; Acriflavin; Acriflavin Feulgen SITSA; Aequorin (Photoprotein); AFPs—AutoFluorescent Protein—(Quantum Biotechnologies) see sgGFP, sgBFP; Alexa Fluor 350™; Alexa Fluor 430™; Alexa Fluor 488™; Alexa Fluor 532™; Alexa Fluor 546™; Alexa Fluor 568™; Alexa Fluor 594™; Alexa Fluor 633™; Alexa Fluor 647™; Alexa Fluor 660™; Alexa Fluor 680™; Alizarin Complexon; Alizarin Red; Allophycocyanin (APC); AMC, AMCA-S; Aminomethylcoumarin (AMCA); AMCA-X; Aminoactinomycin D; Aminocoumarin; Anilin Blue; Anthrocyl stearate; APC-Cy7; APTRA-BTC; APTS; Astrazon Brilliant Red 4G; Astrazon Orange R; Astrazon Red 6B; Astrazon Yellow 7 GLL; Atabrine; ATTO-TAG™ CBQCA; ATTO-TAG™ FQ; Auramine; Aurophosphine G; Aurophosphine; BAO 9 (Bisaminophenyloxadiazole); BCECF (high pH); BCECF (low pH); Berberine Sulphate; Beta Lactamase; BFP blue shifted GFP (Y66H); Blue Fluorescent Protein; BFP/GFP FRET; Bimane; Bisbenzemide; Bisbenzimide (Hoechst); bis-BTC; Blancophor FFG; Blancophor SV; BOBO™-1; BOBO™-3; Bodipy 492/515; Bodipy 493/503; Bodipy 500/510; Bodipy; 505/515; Bodipy 530/550; Bodipy 542/563; Bodipy 558/568; Bodipy 564/570; Bodipy 576/589; Bodipy 581/591; Bodipy 630/650-X; Bodipy 650/665-X; Bodipy 665/676; Bodipy Fl; Bodipy FL ATP; Bodipy Fl-Ceramide; Bodipy R6G SE; Bodipy TMR; Bodipy TMR-X conjugate; Bodipy TMR-X, SE; Bodipy TR; Bodipy TR ATP; Bodipy TR-X SE; BO-PRO™-1; BO-PRO™-3; Brilliant Sulphoflavin FF; BTC; BTC-5N; Calcein; Calcein Blue; Calcium Crimson—; Calcium Green; Calcium Green-1 Ca2+ Dye; Calcium Green-2 Ca2+; Calcium Green-5N Ca2+; Calcium Green-C18 Ca2+; Calcium Orange; Calcofluor White; Carboxy-X-rhodamine (5-ROX); Cascade Blue™; Cascade Yellow; Catecholamine; CCF2 (GeneBlazer); CFDA; CFP (Cyan Fluorescent Protein); CFP/YFP FRET; Chlorophyll; Chromomycin A; Chromomycin A; CL-NERF; CMFDA; Coelenterazine; Coelenterazine cp; Coelenterazine f; Coelenterazine fcp; Coelenterazine h; Coelenterazine hcp; Coelenterazine ip; Coelenterazine n; Coelenterazine O; Coumarin Phalloidin; C-phycocyanine; CPM I Methylcoumarin; CTC; CTC Formazan; Cy2™; Cy3.1 8; Cy3.5™; Cy3™; Cy5.1 8; Cy5.5™; Cy5™; Cy7™; Cyan GFP; cyclic AMP Fluorosensor (FiCRhR); Dabcyl; Dansyl; Dansyl Amine; Dansyl Cadaverine; Dansyl Chloride; Dansyl DHPE; Dansyl fluoride; DAPI; Dapoxyl; Dapoxyl 2; Dapoxyl 3′DCFDA; DCFH (Dichlorodihydrofluorescein Diacetate); DDAO; DHR (Dihydorhodamine 123); Di-4-ANEPPS; Di-8-ANEPPS (non-ratio); DiA (4-Di 16-ASP); Dichlorodihydrofluorescein Diacetate (DCFH); DiD-Lipophilic Tracer; DiD (Di1C18(5)); DIDS; Dihydorhodamine 123 (DHR); Dil (Di1C18(3)); I Dinitrophenol; DiO (DiOC18(3)); DiR; DiR (Di1C18(7)); DM-NERF (high pH); DNP; Dopamine; DsRed; DTAF; DY-630-NHS; DY-635-NHS; EBFP; ECFP; EGFP; ELF 97; Eosin; Erythrosin; Erythrosin ITC; Ethidium Bromide; Ethidium homodimer-1 (EthD-1); Euchrysin; EukoLight; Europium (111) chloride; EYFP; Fast Blue; FDA; Feulgen (Pararosaniline); FIF (Formaldehyd Induced Fluorescence); FITC; Flazo Orange; Fluo-3; Fluo-4; Fluorescein (FITC); Fluorescein Diacetate; Fluoro-Emerald; Fluoro-Gold (Hydroxystilbamidine); Fluor-Ruby; FluorX; FM 1-43™; FM 4-46; Fura Red™ (high pH); Fura Red™/Fluo-3; Fura-2; Fura-2/BCECF; Genacryl Brilliant Red B; Genacryl Brilliant Yellow 10GF; Genacryl Pink 3G; Genacryl Yellow SGF; GeneBlazer; (CCF2); GFP (S65T); GFP red shifted (rsGFP); GFP wild type′ non-UV excitation (wtGFP); GFP wild type, UV excitation (wtGFP); GFPuv; Gloxalic Acid; Granular blue; Haematoporphyrin; Hoechst 33258; Hoechst 33342; Hoechst 34580; HPTS; Hydroxycoumarin; Hydroxystilbamidine (FluoroGold); Hydroxytryptamine; Indo-1, high calcium; Indo-1 low calcium; Indodicarbocyanine (DiD); Indotricarbocyanine (DiR); Intrawhite Cf; JC-1; JO JO-1; JO-PRO-1; LaserPro; Laurodan; LDS 751 (DNA); LDS 751 (RNA); Leucophor PAF; Leucophor SF; Leucophor WS; Lissamine Rhodamine; Lissamine Rhodamine B; Calcein/Ethidium homodimer; LOLO-1; LO-PRO-1; Lucifer Yellow; Lyso Tracker Blue; Lyso Tracker Blue-White; Lyso Tracker Green; Lyso Tracker Red; Lyso Tracker Yellow; LysoSensor Blue; LysoSensor Green; LysoSensor Yellow/Blue; Mag Green; Magdala Red (Phloxin B); Mag-Fura Red; Mag-Fura-2; Mag-Fura-5; Mag-lndo-1; Magnesium Green; Magnesium Orange; Malachite Green; Marina Blue; I Maxilon Brilliant Flavin 10 GFF; Maxilon Brilliant Flavin 8 GFF; Merocyanin; Methoxycoumarin; Mitotracker Green FM; Mitotracker Orange; Mitotracker Red; Mitramycin; Monobromobimane; Monobromobimane (mBBr-GSH); Monochlorobimane; MPS (Methyl Green Pyronine Stilbene); NBD; NBD Amine; Nile Red; Nitrobenzoxedidole; Noradrenaline; Nuclear Fast Red; i Nuclear Yellow; Nylosan Brilliant lavin EBG; Oregon Green™; Oregon Green™ 488; Oregon Green™ 500; Oregon Green™ 514; Pacific Blue; Pararosaniline (Feulgen); PBFI; PE-Cy5; PE-Cy7; PerCP; PerCP-Cy5.5; PE-TexasRed (Red 613); Phloxin B (Magdala Red); Phorwite AR; Phorwite BKL; Phorwite Rev; Phorwite RPA; Phosphine 3R; PhotoResist; Phycoerythrin B [PE]; Phycoerythrin R [PE]; PKH26 (Sigma); PKH67; PMIA; Pontochrome Blue Black; POPO-1; POPO-3; PO-PRO-1; PO-I PRO-3; Primuline; Procion Yellow; Propidium lodid (P1); PyMPO; Pyrene; Pyronine; Pyronine B; Pyrozal Brilliant Flavin 7GF; QSY 7; Quinacrine Mustard; Resorufin; RH 414; Rhod-2; Rhodamine; Rhodamine 110; Rhodamine 123; Rhodamine 5 GLD; Rhodamine 6G; Rhodamine B; Rhodamine B 200; Rhodamine B extra; Rhodamine BB; Rhodamine BG; Rhodamine Green; Rhodamine Phallicidine; Rhodamine: Phalloidine; Rhodamine Red; Rhodamine WT; Rose Bengal; R-phycocyanine; R-phycoerythrin (PE); rsGFP; S65A; S65C; S65L; S65T; Sapphire GFP; SBFI; Serotonin; Sevron Brilliant Red 2B; Sevron Brilliant Red 4G; Sevron I Brilliant Red B; Sevron Orange; Sevron Yellow L; sgBFP™ (super glow BFP); sgGFP™ (super glow GFP); SITS (Primuline; Stilbene Isothiosulphonic Acid); SNAFL calcein; SNAFL-1; SNAFL-2; SNARF calcein; SNARF1; Sodium Green; SpectrumAqua; SpectrumGreen; SpectrumOrange; Spectrum Red; SPQ (6-methoxy-N-(3 sulfopropyl) quinolinium); Stilbene; Sulphorhodamine B and C; Sulphorhodamine Extra; SYTO 11; SYTO 12; SYTO 13; SYTO 14; SYTO 15; SYTO 16; SYTO 17; SYTO 18; SYTO 20; SYTO 21; SYTO 22; SYTO 23; SYTO 24; SYTO 25; SYTO 40; SYTO 41; SYTO 42; SYTO 43; SYTO 44; SYTO 45; SYTO 59; SYTO 60; SYTO 61; SYTO 62; SYTO 63; SYTO 64; SYTO 80; SYTO 81; SYTO 82; SYTO 83; SYTO 84; SYTO 85; SYTOX Blue; SYTOX Green; SYTOX Orange; Tetracycline; Tetramethylrhodamine (TRITC); Texas Red™; Texas Red-X™ conjugate; Thiadicarbocyanine (DiSC3); Thiazine Red R; Thiazole Orange; Thioflavin 5; Thioflavin S; Thioflavin TON; Thiolyte; Thiozole Orange; Tinopol CBS (Calcofluor White); TIER; TO-PRO-1; TO-PRO-3; TO-PRO-5; TOTO-1; TOTO-3; TriColor (PE-Cy5); TRITC TetramethylRodaminelsoThioCyanate; True Blue; Tru Red; Ultralite; Uranine B; Uvitex SFC; wt GFP; WW 781; X-Rhodamine; XRITC; Xylene Orange; Y66F; Y66H; Y66W; Yellow GFP; YFP; YO-PRO-1; YO-PRO 3; YOYO-1; YOYO-3; Sybr Green; Thiazole orange (interchelating dyes); semiconductor nanoparticles such as quantum dots; or caged fluorophore (which can be activated with light or other electromagnetic energy source), or a combination thereof.
A modifier unit such as a radionuclide can be incorporated into or attached directly to any of the compounds described herein by halogenation. Examples of radionuclides useful in this embodiment include, but are not limited to, tritium, iodine-125, iodine-131, iodine-123, iodine-124, astatine-210, carbon-11, carbon-14, nitrogen-13, fluorine-18. In another aspect, the radionuclide can be attached to a linking group or bound by a chelating group, which is then attached to the compound directly or by means of a linker. Examples of radionuclides useful in the apset include, but are not limited to, Tc-99m, Re-186, Ga-68, Re-188, Y-90, Sm-153, Bi-212, Cu-67, Cu-64, and Cu-62. Radiolabeling techniques such as these are routinely used in the radiopharmaceutical industry.
The radiolabeled compounds are useful as imaging agents to diagnose neurological disease (e.g., a neurodegenerative disease) or a mental condition or to follow the progression or treatment of such a disease or condition in a mammal (e.g., a human). The radiolabeled compounds described herein can be conveniently used in conjunction with imaging techniques such as positron emission tomography (PET) or single photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT).
Labeling can be either direct or indirect. In direct labeling, the detecting antibody (the antibody for the molecule of interest) or detecting molecule (the molecule that can be bound by an antibody to the molecule of interest) include a label. Detection of the label indicates the presence of the detecting antibody or detecting molecule, which in turn indicates the presence of the molecule of interest or of an antibody to the molecule of interest, respectively. In indirect labeling, an additional molecule or moiety is brought into contact with, or generated at the site of, the immunocomplex. For example, a signal-generating molecule or moiety such as an enzyme can be attached to or associated with the detecting antibody or detecting molecule. The signal-generating molecule can then generate a detectable signal at the site of the immunocomplex. For example, an enzyme, when supplied with suitable substrate, can produce a visible or detectable product at the site of the immunocomplex. ELISAs use this type of indirect labeling.
As another example of indirect labeling, an additional molecule (which can be referred to as a binding agent) that can bind to either the molecule of interest or to the antibody (primary antibody) to the molecule of interest, such as a second antibody to the primary antibody, can be contacted with the immunocomplex. The additional molecule can have a label or signal-generating molecule or moiety. The additional molecule can be an antibody, which can thus be termed a secondary antibody. Binding of a secondary antibody to the primary antibody can form a so-called sandwich with the first (or primary) antibody and the molecule of interest. The immune complexes can be contacted with the labeled, secondary antibody under conditions effective and for a period of time sufficient to allow the formation of secondary immune complexes. The secondary immune complexes can then be generally washed to remove any non-specifically bound labeled secondary antibodies, and the remaining label in the secondary immune complexes can then be detected. The additional molecule can also be or include one of a pair of molecules or moieties that can bind to each other, such as the biotin/avidin pair. In this mode, the detecting antibody or detecting molecule should include the other member of the pair.
Other modes of indirect labeling include the detection of primary immune complexes by a two-step approach. For example, a molecule (which can be referred to as a first binding agent), such as an antibody, that has binding affinity for the molecule of interest or corresponding antibody can be used to form secondary immune complexes, as described above. After washing, the secondary immune complexes can be contacted with another molecule (which can be referred to as a second binding agent) that has binding affinity for the first binding agent, again under conditions effective and for a period of time sufficient to allow the formation of immune complexes (thus forming tertiary immune complexes). The second binding agent can be linked to a detectable label or signal-genarating molecule or moiety, allowing detection of the tertiary immune complexes thus formed. This system can provide for signal amplification.
Immunoassays that involve the detection of as substance, such as a protein or an antibody to a specific protein, include label-free assays, protein separation methods (i.e., electrophoresis), solid support capture assays, or in vivo detection. Label-free assays are generally diagnostic means of determining the presence or absence of a specific protein, or an antibody to a specific protein, in a sample. Protein separation methods are additionally useful for evaluating physical properties of the protein, such as size or net charge. Capture assays are generally more useful for quantitatively evaluating the concentration of a specific protein, or antibody to a specific protein, in a sample. Finally, in vivo detection is useful for evaluating the spatial expression patterns of the substance, i.e., where the substance can be found in a subject, tissue or cell.
Provided that the concentrations are sufficient, the molecular complexes ([Ab-Ag]n) generated by antibody-antigen interaction are visible to the naked eye, but smaller amounts may also be detected and measured due to their ability to scatter a beam of light. The formation of complexes indicates that both reactants are present, and in immunoprecipitation assays a constant concentration of a reagent antibody is used to measure specific antigen ([Ab-Ag]n), and reagent antigens are used to detect specific antibody ([Ab-Ag]n). If the reagent species is previously coated onto cells (as in hemagglutination assay) or very small particles (as in latex agglutination assay), “clumping” of the coated particles is visible at much lower concentrations. A variety of assays based on these elementary principles are in common use, including Ouchterlony immunodiffusion assay, rocket immunoelectrophoresis, and immunoturbidometric and nephelometric assays. The main limitations of such assays are restricted sensitivity (lower detection limits) in comparison to assays employing labels and, in some cases, the fact that very high concentrations of analyte can actually inhibit complex formation, necessitating safeguards that make the procedures more complex. Some of these Group 1 assays date right back to the discovery of antibodies and none of them have an actual “label” (e.g. Ag-enz). Other kinds of immunoassays that are label free depend on immunosensors, and a variety of instruments that can directly detect antibody-antigen interactions are now commercially available. Most depend on generating an evanescent wave on a sensor surface with immobilized ligand, which allows continuous monitoring of binding to the ligand. Immunosensors allow the easy investigation of kinetic interactions and, with the advent of lower-cost specialized instruments, may in the future find wide application in immunoanalysis.
The use of immunoassays to detect a specific protein can involve the separation of the proteins by electrophoresis. Electrophoresis is the migration of charged molecules in solution in response to an electric field. Their rate of migration depends on the strength of the field; on the net charge, size and shape of the molecules and also on the ionic strength, viscosity and temperature of the medium in which the molecules are moving. As an analytical tool, electrophoresis is simple, rapid and highly sensitive. It is used analytically to study the properties of a single charged species, and as a separation technique.
Generally the sample is run in a support matrix such as paper, cellulose acetate, starch gel, agarose or polyacrylamide gel. The matrix inhibits convective mixing caused by heating and provides a record of the electrophoretic run: at the end of the run, the matrix can be stained and used for scanning, autoradiography or storage. In addition, the most commonly used support matrices—agarose and polyacrylamide—provide a means of separating molecules by size, in that they are porous gels. A porous gel may act as a sieve by retarding, or in some cases completely obstructing, the movement of large macromolecules while allowing smaller molecules to migrate freely. Because dilute agarose gels are generally more rigid and easy to handle than polyacrylamide of the same concentration, agarose is used to separate larger macromolecules such as nucleic acids, large proteins and protein complexes. Polyacrylamide, which is easy to handle and to make at higher concentrations, is used to separate most proteins and small oligonucleotides that require a small gel pore size for retardation.
Proteins are amphoteric compounds; their net charge therefore is determined by the pH of the medium in which they are suspended. In a solution with a pH above its isoelectric point, a protein has a net negative charge and migrates towards the anode in an electrical field. Below its isoelectric point, the protein is positively charged and migrates towards the cathode. The net charge carried by a protein is in addition independent of its size—i.e., the charge carried per unit mass (or length, given proteins and nucleic acids are linear macromolecules) of molecule differs from protein to protein. At a given pH therefore, and under non-denaturing conditions, the electrophoretic separation of proteins is determined by both size and charge of the molecules.
Sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) is an anionic detergent which denatures proteins by “wrapping around” the polypeptide backbone—and SDS binds to proteins fairly specifically in a mass ratio of 1.4:1. In so doing, SDS confers a negative charge to the polypeptide in proportion to its length. Further, it is usually necessary to reduce disulfide bridges in proteins (denature) before they adopt the random-coil configuration necessary for separation by size; this is done with 2-mercaptoethanol or dithiothreitol (DTT). In denaturing SDS-PAGE separations therefore, migration is determined not by intrinsic electrical charge of the polypeptide, but by molecular weight.
Determination of molecular weight is done by SDS-PAGE of proteins of known molecular weight along with the protein to be characterized. A linear relationship exists between the logarithm of the molecular weight of an SDS-denatured polypeptide, or native nucleic acid, and its Rf. The Rf is calculated as the ratio of the distance migrated by the molecule to that migrated by a marker dye-front. A simple way of determining relative molecular weight by electrophoresis (Mr) is to plot a standard curve of distance migrated vs. log 10 MW for known samples, and read off the log Mr of the sample after measuring distance migrated on the same gel.
In two-dimensional electrophoresis, proteins are fractionated first on the basis of one physical property, and, in a second step, on the basis of another. For example, isoelectric focusing can be used for the first dimension, conveniently carried out in a tube gel, and SDS electrophoresis in a slab gel can be used for the second dimension. One example of a procedure is that of O'Farrell, P. H., High Resolution Two-dimensional Electrophoresis of Proteins, J. Biol. Chem. 250:4007-4021 (1975), herein incorporated by reference in its entirety for its teaching regarding two-dimensional electrophoresis methods. Other examples include but are not limited to, those found in Anderson, L and Anderson, NG, High resolution two-dimensional electrophoresis of human plasma proteins, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 74:5421-5425 (1977), Ornstein, L., Disc electrophoresis, L. Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 121:321349 (1964), each of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety for teachings regarding electrophoresis methods. Laemmli, U.K., Cleavage of structural proteins during the assembly of the head of bacteriophage T4, Nature 227:680 (1970), which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety for teachings regarding electrophoresis methods, discloses a discontinuous system for resolving proteins denatured with SDS. The leading ion in the Laemmli buffer system is chloride, and the trailing ion is glycine. Accordingly, the resolving gel and the stacking gel are made up in Tris-HCl buffers (of different concentration and pH), while the tank buffer is Tris-glycine. All buffers contain 0.1% SDS.
One example of an immunoassay that uses electrophoresis that is contemplated in the current methods is Western blot analysis. Western blotting or immunoblotting allows the determination of the molecular mass of a protein and the measurement of relative amounts of the protein present in different samples. Detection methods include chemiluminescence and chromogenic detection. Standard methods for Western blot analysis can be found in, for example, D. M. Bollag et al., Protein Methods (2d edition 1996) and E. Harlow & D. Lane, Antibodies, a Laboratory Manual (1988), U.S. Pat. No. 4,452,901, each of which is herein incorporated by reference in their entirety for teachings regarding Western blot methods. Generally, proteins are separated by gel electrophoresis, usually SDS-PAGE. The proteins are transferred to a sheet of special blotting paper, e.g., nitrocellulose, though other types of paper, or membranes, can be used. The proteins retain the same pattern of separation they had on the gel. The blot is incubated with a generic protein (such as milk proteins) to bind to any remaining sticky places on the nitrocellulose. An antibody is then added to the solution which is able to bind to its specific protein.
The attachment of specific antibodies to specific immobilized antigens can be readily visualized by indirect enzyme immunoassay techniques, usually using a chromogenic substrate (e.g. alkaline phosphatase or horseradish peroxidase) or chemiluminescent substrates. Other possibilities for probing include the use of fluorescent or radioisotope labels (e.g., fluorescein, 125I). Probes for the detection of antibody binding can be conjugated anti-immunoglobulins, conjugated staphylococcal Protein A (binds IgG), or probes to biotinylated primary antibodies (e.g., conjugated avidin/streptavidin).
The power of the technique lies in the simultaneous detection of a specific protein by means of its antigenicity, and its molecular mass. Proteins are first separated by mass in the SDS-PAGE, then specifically detected in the immunoassay step. Thus, protein standards (ladders) can be run simultaneously in order to approximate molecular mass of the protein of interest in a heterogeneous sample.
The gel shift assay or electrophoretic mobility shift assay (EMSA) can be used to detect the interactions between DNA binding proteins and their cognate DNA recognition sequences, in both a qualitative and quantitative manner. Exemplary techniques are described in Ornstein L., Disc electrophoresis—I: Background and theory, Ann. NY Acad. Sci. 121:321-349 (1964), and Matsudiara, PT and DR Burgess, SDS microslab linear gradient polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, Anal. Biochem. 87:386-396 (1987), each of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety for teachings regarding gel-shift assays.
In a general gel-shift assay, purified proteins or crude cell extracts can be incubated with a labeled (e.g., 32P-radiolabeled) DNA or RNA probe, followed by separation of the complexes from the free probe through a nondenaturing polyacrylamide gel. The complexes migrate more slowly through the gel than unbound probe. Depending on the activity of the binding protein, a labeled probe can be either double-stranded or single-stranded. For the detection of DNA binding proteins such as transcription factors, either purified or partially purified proteins, or nuclear cell extracts can be used. For detection of RNA binding proteins, either purified or partially purified proteins, or nuclear or cytoplasmic cell extracts can be used. The specificity of the DNA or RNA binding protein for the putative binding site is established by competition experiments using DNA or RNA fragments or oligonucleotides containing a binding site for the protein of interest, or other unrelated sequence. The differences in the nature and intensity of the complex formed in the presence of specific and nonspecific competitor allows identification of specific interactions.
Gel shift methods can include using, for example, colloidal forms of COOMASSIE (Imperial Chemicals Industries, Ltd) blue stain to detect proteins in gels such as polyacrylamide electrophoresis gels. Such methods are described, for example, in Neuhoff et al., Electrophoresis 6:427-448 (1985), and Neuhoff et al., Electrophoresis 9:255-262 (1988), each of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety for teachings regarding gel shift methods. In addition to the conventional protein assay methods referenced above, a combination cleaning and protein staining composition is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,424,000, herein incorporated by reference in its entirety for its teaching regarding gel shift methods. The solutions can include phosphoric, sulfuric, and nitric acids, and Acid Violet dye.
Radioimmune Precipitation Assay (RIPA) is a sensitive assay using radiolabeled antigens to detect specific antibodies in serum. The antigens are allowed to react with the serum and then precipitated using a special reagent such as, for example, protein A sepharose beads. The bound radiolabeled immunoprecipitate is then commonly analyzed by gel electrophoresis. Radioimmunoprecipitation assay (RIPA) is often used as a confirmatory test for diagnosing the presence of HIV antibodies. RIPA is also referred to in the art as Farr Assay, Precipitin Assay, Radioimmune Precipitin Assay; Radioimmunoprecipitation Analysis; Radioimmunoprecipitation Analysis, and Radioimmunoprecipitation Analysis.
While the above immunoassays that utilize electrophoresis to separate and detect the specific proteins of interest allow for evaluation of protein size, they are not very sensitive for evaluating protein concentration. However, also contemplated are immunoassays wherein the protein or antibody specific for the protein is bound to a solid support (e.g., tube, well, bead, or cell) to capture the antibody or protein of interest, respectively, from a sample, combined with a method of detecting the protein or antibody specific for the protein on the support. Examples of such immunoassays include Radioimmunoassay (RIA), Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA), Flow cytometry, protein array, multiplexed bead assay, and magnetic capture.
Radioimmunoassay (RIA) is a classic quantitative assay for detection of antigen-antibody reactions using a radioactively labeled substance (radioligand), either directly or indirectly, to measure the binding of the unlabeled substance to a specific antibody or other receptor system. Radioimmunoassay is used, for example, to test hormone levels in the blood without the need to use a bioassay. Non-immunogenic substances (e.g., haptens) can also be measured if coupled to larger carrier proteins (e.g., bovine gamma-globulin or human serum albumin) capable of inducing antibody formation. RIA involves mixing a radioactive antigen (because of the ease with which iodine atoms can be introduced into tyrosine residues in a protein, the radioactive isotopes 125I or 131I are often used) with antibody to that antigen. The antibody is generally linked to a solid support, such as a tube or beads. Unlabeled or “cold” antigen is then adding in known quantities and measuring the amount of labeled antigen displaced. Initially, the radioactive antigen is bound to the antibodies. When cold antigen is added, the two compete for antibody binding sites—and at higher concentrations of cold antigen, more binds to the antibody, displacing the radioactive variant. The bound antigens are separated from the unbound ones in solution and the radioactivity of each used to plot a binding curve. The technique is both extremely sensitive, and specific.
Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA), or more generically termed EIA (Enzyme ImmunoAssay), is an immunoassay that can detect an antibody specific for a protein. In such an assay, a detectable label bound to either an antibody-binding or antigen-binding reagent is an enzyme. When exposed to its substrate, this enzyme reacts in such a manner as to produce a chemical moiety which can be detected, for example, by spectrophotometric, fluorometric or visual means. Enzymes which can be used to detectably label reagents useful for detection include, but are not limited to, horseradish peroxidase, alkaline phosphatase, glucose oxidase, β-galactosidase, ribonuclease, urease, catalase, malate dehydrogenase, staphylococcal nuclease, asparaginase, yeast alcohol dehydrogenase, alpha.-glycerophosphate dehydrogenase, triose phosphate isomerase, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, glucoamylase and acetylcholinesterase.
Variations of ELISA techniques are known to those of skill in the art. In one variation, antibodies that can bind to proteins can be immobilized onto a selected surface exhibiting protein affinity, such as a well in a polystyrene microtiter plate. Then, a test composition suspected of containing a marker antigen can be added to the wells. After binding and washing to remove non-specifically bound immunocomplexes, the bound antigen can be detected. Detection can be achieved by the addition of a second antibody specific for the target protein, which is linked to a detectable label. This type of ELISA is a simple “sandwich ELISA.” Detection also can be achieved by the addition of a second antibody, followed by the addition of a third antibody that has binding affinity for the second antibody, with the third antibody being linked to a detectable label.
Another variation is a competition ELISA. In competition ELISA's, test samples compete for binding with known amounts of labeled antigens or antibodies. The amount of reactive species in the sample can be determined by mixing the sample with the known labeled species before or during incubation with coated wells. The presence of reactive species in the sample acts to reduce the amount of labeled species available for binding to the well and thus reduces the ultimate signal.
Regardless of the format employed, ELISAs have certain features in common, such as coating, incubating or binding, washing to remove non-specifically bound species, and detecting the bound immunecomplexes. Antigen or antibodies can be linked to a solid support, such as in the form of plate, beads, dipstick, membrane or column matrix, and the sample to be analyzed applied to the immobilized antigen or antibody. In coating a plate with either antigen or antibody, one will generally incubate the wells of the plate with a solution of the antigen or antibody, either overnight or for a specified period of hours. The wells of the plate can then be washed to remove incompletely adsorbed material. Any remaining available surfaces of the wells can then be “coated” with a nonspecific protein that is antigenically neutral with regard to the test antisera. These include bovine serum albumin (BSA), casein and solutions of milk powder. The coating allows for blocking of nonspecific adsorption sites on the immobilizing surface and thus reduces the background caused by nonspecific binding of antisera onto the surface.
In ELISAs, a secondary or tertiary detection means rather than a direct procedure can also be used. Thus, after binding of a protein or antibody to the well, coating with a non-reactive material to reduce background, and washing to remove unbound material, the immobilizing surface is contacted with the control clinical or biological sample to be tested under conditions effective to allow immunecomplex (antigen/antibody) formation. Detection of the immunecomplex then requires a labeled secondary binding agent or a secondary binding agent in conjunction with a labeled third binding agent.
Enzyme-Linked Immunospot Assay (ELISpot) is an immunoassay that can detect an antibody specific for a protein or antigen. In such an assay, a detectable label bound to either an antibody-binding or antigen-binding reagent is an enzyme. When exposed to its substrate, this enzyme reacts in such a manner as to produce a chemical moiety which can be detected, for example, by spectrophotometric, fluorometric or visual means. Enzymes which can be used to detectably label reagents useful for detection include, but are not limited to, horseradish peroxidase, alkaline phosphatase, glucose oxidase, β-galactosidase, ribonuclease, urease, catalase, malate dehydrogenase, staphylococcal nuclease, asparaginase, yeast alcohol dehydrogenase, alpha.-glycerophosphate dehydrogenase, triose phosphate isomerase, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, glucoamylase and acetylcholinesterase. In this assay a nitrocellulose microtiter plate is coated with antigen. The test sample is exposed to the antigen and then reacted similarly to an ELISA assay. Detection differs from a traditional ELISA in that detection is determined by the enumeration of spots on the nitrocellulose plate. The presence of a spot indicates that the sample reacted to the antigen. The spots can be counted and the number of cells in the sample specific for the antigen determined.
“Under conditions effective to allow immunecomplex (antigen/antibody) formation” means that the conditions include diluting the antigens and antibodies with solutions such as BSA, bovine gamma globulin (BGG) and phosphate buffered saline (PBS)/Tween so as to reduce non-specific binding and to promote a reasonable signal to noise ratio.
The suitable conditions also mean that the incubation is at a temperature and for a period of time sufficient to allow effective binding. Incubation steps can typically be from about 1 minute to twelve hours, at temperatures of about 20° to 30° C., or can be incubated overnight at about 0° C. to about 10° C.
Following all incubation steps in an ELISA, the contacted surface can be washed so as to remove non-complexed material. A washing procedure can include washing with a solution such as PBS/Tween or borate buffer. Following the formation of specific immunecomplexes between the test sample and the originally bound material, and subsequent washing, the occurrence of even minute amounts of immunecomplexes can be determined.
To provide a detecting means, the second or third antibody can have an associated label to allow detection, as described above. This can be an enzyme that can generate color development upon incubating with an appropriate chromogenic substrate. Thus, for example, one can contact and incubate the first or second immunecomplex with a labeled antibody for a period of time and under conditions that favor the development of further immunecomplex formation (e.g., incubation for 2 hours at room temperature in a PBS-containing solution such as PBS-Tween).
After incubation with the labeled antibody, and subsequent to washing to remove unbound material, the amount of label can be quantified, e.g., by incubation with a chromogenic substrate such as urea and bromocresol purple or 2,2′-azido-di-(3-ethyl-benzthiazoline-6-sulfonic acid [ABTS] and H2O2, in the case of peroxidase as the enzyme label. Quantitation can then be achieved by measuring the degree of color generation, e.g., using a visible spectra spectrophotometer.
Protein arrays are solid-phase ligand binding assay systems using immobilized proteins on surfaces which include glass, membranes, microtiter wells, mass spectrometer plates, and beads or other particles. The assays are highly parallel (multiplexed) and often miniaturized (microarrays, protein chips). Their advantages include being rapid and automatable, capable of high sensitivity, economical on reagents, and giving an abundance of data for a single experiment. Bioinformatics support is important; the data handling demands sophisticated software and data comparison analysis. However, the software can be adapted from that used for DNA arrays, as can much of the hardware and detection systems.
One of the chief formats is the capture array, in which ligand-binding reagents, which are usually antibodies but can also be alternative protein scaffolds, peptides or nucleic acid aptamers, are used to detect target molecules in mixtures such as plasma or tissue extracts. In diagnostics, capture arrays can be used to carry out multiple immunoassays in parallel, both testing for several analytes in individual sera for example and testing many serum samples simultaneously. In proteomics, capture arrays are used to quantitate and compare the levels of proteins in different samples in health and disease, i.e. protein expression profiling. Proteins other than specific ligand binders are used in the array format for in vitro functional interaction screens such as protein-protein, protein-DNA, protein-drug, receptor-ligand, enzyme-substrate, etc. The capture reagents themselves are selected and screened against many proteins, which can also be done in a multiplex array format against multiple protein targets.
For construction of arrays, sources of proteins include cell-based expression systems for recombinant proteins, purification from natural sources, production in vitro by cell-free translation systems, and synthetic methods for peptides. Many of these methods can be automated for high throughput production. For capture arrays and protein function analysis, it is important that proteins should be correctly folded and functional; this is not always the case, e.g. where recombinant proteins are extracted from bacteria under denaturing conditions. Nevertheless, arrays of denatured proteins are useful in screening antibodies for cross-reactivity, identifying autoantibodies and selecting ligand binding proteins.
Protein arrays have been designed as a miniaturization of familiar immunoassay methods such as ELISA and dot blotting, often utilizing fluorescent readout, and facilitated by robotics and high throughput detection systems to enable multiple assays to be carried out in parallel. Commonly used physical supports include glass slides, silicon, microwells, nitrocellulose or PVDF membranes, and magnetic and other microbeads. While microdrops of protein delivered onto planar surfaces are the most familiar format, alternative architectures include CD centrifugation devices based on developments in microfluidics (Gyros, Monmouth Junction, N.J.) and specialised chip designs, such as engineered microchannels in a plate (e.g., The Living Chip™, Biotrove, Woburn, Mass.) and tiny 3D posts on a silicon surface (Zyomyx, Hayward Calif.). Particles in suspension can also be used as the basis of arrays, providing they are coded for identification; systems include colour coding for microbeads (Luminex, Austin, Tex.; Bio-Rad Laboratories) and semiconductor nanocrystals (e.g., QDots™, Quantum Dot, Hayward, Calif.), and barcoding for beads (UltraPlex™, SmartBead Technologies Ltd, Babraham, Cambridge, UK) and multimetal microrods (e.g., Nanobarcodes™ particles, Nanoplex Technologies, Mountain View, Calif.). Beads can also be assembled into planar arrays on semiconductor chips (LEAPS technology, BioArray Solutions, Warren, N.J.).
Immobilization of proteins involves both the coupling reagent and the nature of the surface being coupled to. A good protein array support surface is chemically stable before and after the coupling procedures, allows good spot morphology, displays minimal nonspecific binding, does not contribute a background in detection systems, and is compatible with different detection systems. The immobilization method used are reproducible, applicable to proteins of different properties (size, hydrophilic, hydrophobic), amenable to high throughput and automation, and compatible with retention of fully functional protein activity. Orientation of the surface-bound protein is recognized as an important factor in presenting it to ligand or substrate in an active state; for capture arrays the most efficient binding results are obtained with orientated capture reagents, which generally require site-specific labeling of the protein.
Both covalent and noncovalent methods of protein immobilization are used and have various pros and cons. Passive adsorption to surfaces is methodologically simple, but allows little quantitative or orientational control; it may or may not alter the functional properties of the protein, and reproducibility and efficiency are variable. Covalent coupling methods provide a stable linkage, can be applied to a range of proteins and have good reproducibility; however, orientation may be variable, chemical derivatization may alter the function of the protein and requires a stable interactive surface. Biological capture methods utilizing a tag on the protein provide a stable linkage and bind the protein specifically and in reproducible orientation, but the biological reagent must first be immobilized adequately and the array may require special handling and have variable stability.
Several immobilization chemistries and tags have been described for fabrication of protein arrays. Substrates for covalent attachment include glass slides coated with amino- or aldehyde-containing silane reagents. In the Versalinx™ system (Prolinx, Bothell, Wash.) reversible covalent coupling is achieved by interaction between the protein derivatised with phenyldiboronic acid, and salicylhydroxamic acid immobilized on the support surface. This also has low background binding and low intrinsic fluorescence and allows the immobilized proteins to retain function. Noncovalent binding of unmodified protein occurs within porous structures such as HydroGel™ (PerkinElmer, Wellesley, Mass.), based on a 3-dimensional polyacrylamide gel; this substrate is reported to give a particularly low background on glass microarrays, with a high capacity and retention of protein function. Widely used biological coupling methods are through biotin/streptavidin or hexahistidine/Ni interactions, having modified the protein appropriately. Biotin may be conjugated to a poly-lysine backbone immobilized on a surface such as titanium dioxide (Zyomyx) or tantalum pentoxide (Zeptosens, Witterswil, Switzerland).
Array fabrication methods include robotic contact printing, ink-jetting, piezoelectric spotting and photolithography. A number of commercial arrayers are available [e.g. Packard Biosciences] as well as manual equipment [V & P Scientific]. Bacterial colonies can be robotically gridded onto PVDF membranes for induction of protein expression in situ.
At the limit of spot size and density are nanoarrays, with spots on the nanometer spatial scale, enabling thousands of reactions to be performed on a single chip less than 1 mm square. BioForce Laboratories have developed nanoarrays with 1521 protein spots in 85 sq microns, equivalent to 25 million spots per sq cm, at the limit for optical detection; their readout methods are fluorescence and atomic force microscopy (AFM).
Fluorescence labeling and detection methods are widely used. The same instrumentation as used for reading DNA microarrays is applicable to protein arrays. For differential display, capture (e.g., antibody) arrays can be probed with fluorescently labeled proteins from two different cell states, in which cell lysates are directly conjugated with different fluorophores (e.g. Cy-3, Cy-5) and mixed, such that the color acts as a readout for changes in target abundance. Fluorescent readout sensitivity can be amplified 10-100 fold by tyramide signal amplification (TSA) (PerkinElmer Lifesciences). Planar waveguide technology (Zeptosens) enables ultrasensitive fluorescence detection, with the additional advantage of no intervening washing procedures. High sensitivity can also be achieved with suspension beads and particles, using phycoerythrin as label (Luminex) or the properties of semiconductor nanocrystals (Quantum Dot). A number of novel alternative readouts have been developed, especially in the commercial biotech arena. These include adaptations of surface plasmon resonance (HTS Biosystems, Intrinsic Bioprobes, Tempe, Ariz.), rolling circle DNA amplification (Molecular Staging, New Haven Conn.), mass spectrometry (Intrinsic Bioprobes; Ciphergen, Fremont, Calif.), resonance light scattering (Genicon Sciences, San Diego, Calif.) and atomic force microscopy [BioForce Laboratories].
Capture arrays form the basis of diagnostic chips and arrays for expression profiling. They employ high affinity capture reagents, such as conventional antibodies, single domains, engineered scaffolds, peptides or nucleic acid aptamers, to bind and detect specific target ligands in high throughput manner.
Antibody arrays have the required properties of specificity and acceptable background, and some are available commercially (BD Biosciences, San Jose, Calif.; Clontech, Mountain View, Calif.; BioRad; Sigma, St. Louis, Mo.). Antibodies for capture arrays are made either by conventional immunization (polyclonal sera and hybridomas), or as recombinant fragments, usually expressed in E. coli, after selection from phage or ribosome display libraries (Cambridge Antibody Technology, Cambridge, UK; Biolnvent, Lund, Sweden; Affitech, Walnut Creek, Calif.; Biosite, San Diego, Calif.). In addition to the conventional antibodies, Fab and scFv fragments, single V-domains from camelids or engineered human equivalents (Domantis, Waltham, Mass.) may also be useful in arrays.
The term “scaffold” refers to ligand-binding domains of proteins, which are engineered into multiple variants capable of binding diverse target molecules with antibody-like properties of specificity and affinity. The variants can be produced in a genetic library format and selected against individual targets by phage, bacterial or ribosome display. Such ligand-binding scaffolds or frameworks include ‘Affibodies’ based on Staph. aureus protein A (Affibody, Bromma, Sweden), ‘Trinectins’ based on fibronectins (Phylos, Lexington, Mass.) and ‘Anticalins’ based on the lipocalin structure (Pieris Proteolab, Freising-Weihenstephan, Germany). These can be used on capture arrays in a similar fashion to antibodies and may have advantages of robustness and ease of production.
Nonprotein capture molecules, notably the single-stranded nucleic acid aptamers which bind protein ligands with high specificity and affinity, are also used in arrays (SomaLogic, Boulder, Colo.). Aptamers are selected from libraries of oligonucleotides by the Selex™ procedure and their interaction with protein can be enhanced by covalent attachment, through incorporation of brominated deoxyuridine and UV-activated crosslinking (photoaptamers). Photocrosslinking to ligand reduces the crossreactivity of aptamers due to the specific steric requirements. Aptamers have the advantages of ease of production by automated oligonucleotide synthesis and the stability and robustness of DNA; on photoaptamer arrays, universal fluorescent protein stains can be used to detect binding.
Protein analytes binding to antibody arrays may be detected directly or via a secondary antibody in a sandwich assay. Direct labelling is used for comparison of different samples with different colors. Where pairs of antibodies directed at the same protein ligand are available, sandwich immunoassays provide high specificity and sensitivity and are therefore the method of choice for low abundance proteins such as cytokines; they also give the possibility of detection of protein modifications. Label-free detection methods, including mass spectrometry, surface plasmon resonance and atomic force microscopy, avoid alteration of ligand. What is required from any method is optimal sensitivity and specificity, with low background to give high signal to noise. Since analyte concentrations cover a wide range, sensitivity has to be tailored appropriately; serial dilution of the sample or use of antibodies of different affinities are solutions to this problem. Proteins of interest are frequently those in low concentration in body fluids and extracts, requiring detection in the pg range or lower, such as cytokines or the low expression products in cells.
An alternative to an array of capture molecules is one made through ‘molecular imprinting’ technology, in which peptides (e.g., from the C-terminal regions of proteins) are used as templates to generate structurally complementary, sequence-specific cavities in a polymerizable matrix; the cavities can then specifically capture (denatured) proteins that have the appropriate primary amino acid sequence (ProteinPrint™, Aspira Biosystems, Burlingame, Calif.).
Another methodology which can be used diagnostically and in expression profiling is the ProteinChip® array (Ciphergen, Fremont, Calif.), in which solid phase chromatographic surfaces bind proteins with similar characteristics of charge or hydrophobicity from mixtures such as plasma or tumour extracts, and SELDI-TOF mass spectrometry is used to detection the retained proteins.
Large-scale functional chips have been constructed by immobilizing large numbers of purified proteins and used to assay a wide range of biochemical functions, such as protein interactions with other proteins, drug-target interactions, enzyme-substrates, etc. Generally they require an expression library, cloned into E. coli, yeast or similar from which the expressed proteins are then purified, e.g. via a His tag, and immobilized. Cell free protein transcription/translation is a viable alternative for synthesis of proteins which do not express well in bacterial or other in vivo systems.
For detecting protein-protein interactions, protein arrays can be in vitro alternatives to the cell-based yeast two-hybrid system and may be useful where the latter is deficient, such as interactions involving secreted proteins or proteins with disulphide bridges. High-throughput analysis of biochemical activities on arrays has been described for yeast protein kinases and for various functions (protein-protein and protein-lipid interactions) of the yeast proteome, where a large proportion of all yeast open-reading frames was expressed and immobilised on a microarray. Large-scale ‘proteome chips’ promise to be very useful in identification of functional interactions, drug screening, etc. (Proteometrix, Branford, Conn.).
As a two-dimensional display of individual elements, a protein array can be used to screen phage or ribosome display libraries, in order to select specific binding partners, including antibodies, synthetic scaffolds, peptides and aptamers. In this way, ‘library against library’ screening can be carried out. Screening of drug candidates in combinatorial chemical libraries against an array of protein targets identified from genome projects is another application of the approach.
A multiplexed bead assay, such as, for example, the BD™ Cytometric Bead Array, is a series of spectrally discrete particles that can be used to capture and quantitate soluble analytes. The analyte is then measured by detection of a fluorescence-based emission and flow cytometric analysis. Multiplexed bead assay generates data that is comparable to ELISA based assays, but in a “multiplexed” or simultaneous fashion. Concentration of unknowns is calculated for the cytometric bead array as with any sandwich format assay, i.e. through the use of known standards and plotting unknowns against a standard curve. Further, multiplexed bead assay allows quantification of soluble analytes in samples never previously considered due to sample volume limitations. In addition to the quantitative data, powerful visual images can be generated revealing unique profiles or signatures that provide the user with additional information at a glance.
Accordingly, in one aspect, disclosed herein are methods of identifying neoantigens any neoantigen disclosed herein, wherein the T cell activity (such as, for example, release of cytokines including, but not limited to IFN-γ, TGF-β, lymphotoxin-α, IL-2, IL-4, IL-10, IL-17, or IL-25) is measured by ELISA, ELISpot, Intracellular cytokine staining, or Chromium Release.
It is understood and herein contemplated that the disclosed methods of identifying neoantigens can be used to identify neoantigens in any cancer, including, but not limited to B cell lymphoma, T cell lymphoma, mycosis fungoides, Hodgkin's Disease, myeloid leukemia, bladder cancer, brain cancer, nervous system cancer, head and neck cancer, squamous cell carcinoma of head and neck, lung cancers, small cell lung cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, neuroblastoma, glioblastoma, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, skin cancers, melanoma, basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, liver cancer, squamous cell carcinomas of the mouth, throat, larynx, and lung, cervical cancer, cervical carcinoma, breast cancer, renal cancer, genitourinary cancer, pulmonary cancer, esophageal carcinoma, head and neck carcinoma, large bowel cancer, hematopoietic cancers; testicular cancer; colon and rectal cancers, prostatic cancer, AIDS-related lymphomas, or AIDS-related sarcomas. Therefore, in one aspect, also disclosed herein are methods of identifying any neoantigen disclosed herein, wherein the cancer is selected from the group consisting of B cell lymphoma, T cell lymphoma, mycosis fungoides, Hodgkin's Disease, myeloid leukemia, bladder cancer, brain cancer, nervous system cancer, head and neck cancer, squamous cell carcinoma of head and neck, lung cancers, small cell lung cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, neuroblastoma, glioblastoma, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, skin cancers, melanoma, basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, liver cancer, squamous cell carcinomas of the mouth, throat, larynx, and lung, cervical cancer, cervical carcinoma, breast cancer, renal cancer, genitourinary cancer, pulmonary cancer, esophageal carcinoma, head and neck carcinoma, large bowel cancer, hematopoietic cancers; testicular cancer; colon and rectal cancers, prostatic cancer, AIDS-related lymphomas, or AIDS-related sarcomas.
Disclosed are the components to be used to prepare the disclosed compositions as well as the compositions themselves to be used within the methods disclosed herein. These and other materials are disclosed herein, and it is understood that when combinations, subsets, interactions, groups, etc. of these materials are disclosed that while specific reference of each various individual and collective combinations and permutation of these compounds may not be explicitly disclosed, each is specifically contemplated and described herein. For example, if a particular neoantigen is disclosed and discussed and a number of modifications that can be made to a number of molecules including the neoantigen are discussed, specifically contemplated is each and every combination and permutation of neoantigen and the modifications that are possible unless specifically indicated to the contrary. Thus, if a class of molecules A, B, and C are disclosed as well as a class of molecules D, E, and F and an example of a combination molecule, A-D is disclosed, then even if each is not individually recited each is individually and collectively contemplated meaning combinations, A-E, A-F, B-D, B-E, B-F, C-D, C-E, and C-F are considered disclosed. Likewise, any subset or combination of these is also disclosed. Thus, for example, the sub-group of A-E, B-F, and C-E would be considered disclosed. This concept applies to all aspects of this application including, but not limited to, steps in methods of making and using the disclosed compositions. Thus, if there are a variety of additional steps that can be performed it is understood that each of these additional steps can be performed with any specific embodiment or combination of embodiments of the disclosed methods.
The methods disclosed herein identify neoantigens that can be used in compositions for the treatment of cancer (either as a therapeutic treatment or prophylactic treatment) as well as for the creating of CAR T cells, TCR T cells, and/or TILs that can be used to treat cancer. Thus, in one aspect, also disclosed herein are neoantigens identified by the methods of identifying any neoantigen disclosed herein. For example, disclosed herein are polypeptides comprising the amino acid sequence AEPKRKSSLFWHAFNRLTPFRK (SEQ ID NO: 2) or a fragment thereof comprising at least 9 amino acids, wherein any fragment of the sequence at least comprises LFWHAFNRL (SEQ ID NO: 7), for example, SSLFWHAFNRLTP (SEQ ID NO: 4), RKSSLFWHAFNRL (SEQ ID NO: 3), RKSSLFWHAFNRLTPFR (SEQ ID NO: 6), LFWHAFNRLTPFR (SEQ ID NO: 5), SLFWHAFNRL (SEQ ID NO: 88), SSLFWHAFNRL (SEQ ID NO: 89), SSLFWHAFNRLT (SEQ ID NO: 90), LFWHAFNRLT (SEQ ID NO: 91), LFWHAFNRLTP (SEQ ID NO: 92), SLFWHAFNRLT (SEQ ID NO: 93), LFWHAFNRLTPF (SEQ ID NO: 94); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence FQLLLEKPFQIFCAELWVRDINDHA (SEQ ID NO: 9) or a fragment thereof comprising at least 13 amino acids, wherein any fragment of the sequence at least comprises LEKPFQIFCAELW (SEQ ID NO: 12), for example, LEKPFQIFCAELWV (SEQ ID NO: 95) and LEKPFQIFCAELWVR (SEQ ID NO: 96); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence ENSPLGTEFPLNYALDLDVGSNNVQ (SEQ ID NO: 14) or a fragment thereof comprising at least 13 amino acids, wherein any fragment of the sequence at least comprises LGTEFPLNYALDL (SEQ ID NO: 17), for example LGTEFPLNYALDLD (SEQ ID NO: 97), LGTEFPLNYALDLDV (SEQ ID NO: 98), LGTEFPLNYALDLDVG (SEQ ID NO: 99), LGTEFPLNYALDLDVGS (SEQ ID NO: 100), LGTEFPLNYALDLDVGSN (SEQ ID NO: 101), LGTEFPLNYALDLDVGSNN (SEQ ID NO: 102), LGTEFPLNYALDLDVGSNNV (SEQ ID NO: 103), LGTEFPLNYALDLDVGSNNVQ (SEQ ID NO: 104), ENSPLGTEFPLNYALDL (SEQ ID NO: 105), NSPLGTEFPLNYALDL (SEQ ID NO: 106), SPLGTEFPLNYALDL (SEQ ID NO: 107), PLGTEFPLNYALDL (SEQ ID NO: 108), PLGTEFPLNYALDLD (SEQ ID NO: 109), PLGTEFPLNYALDLDV (SEQ ID NO: 110), SPLGTEFPLNYALDLD (SEQ ID NO: 111), SPLGTEFPLNYALDLDV (SEQ ID NO: 112), NSPLGTEFPLNYALDLDV (SEQ ID NO: 113), and ENSPLGTEFPLNYALDLDV (SEQ ID NO: 114); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence MTDDKDVLRNVWFGRIPTCFT (SEQ ID NO: 19) or a fragment thereof comprising at least 11 amino acids, wherein any fragment of the sequence at least comprises KDVLRNVWFGR (SEQ ID NO: 23), for example, DDKDVLRNVWFGR (SEQ ID NO: 22), KDVLRNVWFGRIP (SEQ ID NO: 21), DDKDVLRNVWFGRIP (SEQ ID NO: 24), DKDVLRNVWFGR (SEQ ID NO: 115), KDVLRNVWFGRI (SEQ ID NO: 116), DKDVLRNVWFGRI (SEQ ID NO: 117), DKDVLRNVWFGRIP (SEQ ID NO: 118), DDKDVLRNVWFGRI (SEQ ID NO: 119), DDKDVLRNVWFGRIPT (SEQ ID NO: 120), DDKDVLRNVWFGRIPTC (SEQ ID NO: 121), and TDDKDVLRNVWFGRIPT (SEQ ID NO: 122); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence RLKASLDRPFTNSESAFYSIVGLSS (SEQ ID NO: 26) or a fragment thereof comprising at least 10 amino acids, wherein any fragment of the sequence at least comprises PFTNSESAFY (SEQ ID NO: 30), for example, DRPFTNSESAFYS (SEQ ID NO: 28), PFTNSESAFYS (SEQ ID NO: 123), PFTNSESAFYSI (SEQ ID NO: 124), PFTNSESAFYSIV (SEQ ID NO: 29), RPFTNSESAFY (SEQ ID NO: 125), RPFTNSESAFYS (SEQ ID NO: 126), RPFTNSESAFYSI (SEQ ID NO: 127), RPFTNSESAFYSIV (SEQ ID NO: 128), DRPFTNSESAFY (SEQ ID NO: 129), DRPFTNSESAFYSI (SEQ ID NO: 130), and DRPFTNSESAFYSIV (SEQ ID NO: 131); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence GSGEKVAGRVIVKVCEVTRVKAVRI (SEQ ID NO: 32) or a fragment thereof comprising at least 9 amino acids, wherein any fragment of the sequence at least comprises RVIVKVCEV (SEQ ID NO: 36), for example, KVAGRVIVKVCEV (SEQ ID NO: 33), AGRVIVKVCEVTR (SEQ ID NO: 34), KVAGRVIVKVCEVTRVK (SEQ ID NO: 32), RVIVKVCEVTRVK (SEQ ID NO: 35), and KVAGRVIVKVCEVTRVK (SEQ ID NO: 37); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence YGMYFCMNISSQEDGACVLLRALEP (SEQ ID NO: 39) or a fragment thereof comprising at least 10 amino acids, wherein any fragment of the sequence at least comprises ISSQEDGACV (SEQ ID NO: 43), for example, MNISSQEDGACVL (SEQ ID NO: 41), ISSQEDGACVLLR (SEQ ID NO: 42), MNISSQEDGACVLLR (SEQ ID NO: 44), ISSQEDGACVL (SEQ ID NO: 132), ISSQEDGACVLL (SEQ ID NO: 133), NISSQEDGACV (SEQ ID NO: 134), NISSQEDGACVL (SEQ ID NO: 135), NISSQEDGACVLL, (SEQ ID NO: 136), NISSQEDGACVLLR (SEQ ID NO: 137), and MNISSQEDGACVLL (SEQ ID NO: 138); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence MKLTSLMCNPVKSPFFGCVCGHVPISMCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQVGA (SEQ ID NO: 46) or a fragment thereof comprising at least 26 amino acids, wherein any fragment of the sequence at least comprises VSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQV (SEQ ID NO: 60), for example, MCNPVKSPFFGCVCGHVPISMCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQVGA (SEQ ID NO: 49), KSPFFGCVCGHVPISMCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQVGA (SEQ ID NO: 50), GCVCGHVPISMCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQVGA (SEQ ID NO: 51), GHVPISMCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQVGA (SEQ ID NO: 52), SMCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQVGA (SEQ ID NO: 53), VSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQVGA (SEQ ID NO: 54), MCNPVKSPFFGCVCGHVPISMCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQV (SEQ ID NO: 57), VSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQVG (SEQ ID NO: 139), CVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQV (SEQ ID NO: 140), MCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQV (SEQ ID NO: 141), MCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQVG (SEQ ID NO: 142), SMCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQV (SEQ ID NO: 143), SMCVSTCSSLPTASCALDLTVLAENSHQVG (SEQ ID NO: 144); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence MLMAQEALAFLMAQGAMLAAQERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRR MEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSRRPWKRSWSAGSCPGMPHRSPDQGRF (SEQ ID NO: 67) or a fragment thereof comprising at least 61 amino acids, wherein any fragment of the sequence at least comprises VPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSRR (SEQ ID NO: 73), for example, QERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRC LSRRPWKR (SEQ ID NO: 74), RVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSR R (SEQ ID NO: 145), RRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLS RR (SEQ ID NO: 146), ERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCL SRR (SEQ ID NO: 147), QERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRC LSRR (SEQ ID NO: 148), RVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSR RP (SEQ ID NO: 149), RRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLS RRP (SEQ ID NO: 150), ERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCL SRRP (SEQ ID NO: 151), QERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRC LSRRP (SEQ ID NO: 152), RVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSR RPW (SEQ ID NO: 153), RRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLS RRPW (SEQ ID NO: 154), ERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCL SRRPW (SEQ ID NO: 155), QERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRC LSRRPW (SEQ ID NO: 156), RVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSR RPWK (SEQ ID NO: 157), RRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLS RRPWK (SEQ ID NO: 158), ERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCL SRRPWK (SEQ ID NO: 159), QERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRC LSRRPWK (SEQ ID NO: 160), RVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSR RPWKR (SEQ ID NO: 161), RRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLS RRPWKR (SEQ ID NO: 162), ERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRCL SRRPWKR (SEQ ID NO: 163), EALAFLMAQGAMLAAQERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPA GPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSRRPWKRSWSAGSCPGMPHRSP (SEQ ID NO: 61), EALAFLMAQGAMLAAQERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPA GPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSRRPWKRSWSAGSCPGM (SEQ ID NO: 62), EALAFLMAQGAMLAAQERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPA GPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSRRPWKRSWSAG (SEQ ID NO: 63), EALAFLMAQGAMLAAQERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPA GPGGRTAACLSCTSRCLSRRPWKR (SEQ ID NO: 64), LMAQGAMLAAQERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGG RTAACLSCTSRCLSRRPWKRSWSAGSCPGMPHRSPDQGRF (SEQ ID NO: 68), AMLAAQERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACL SCTSRCLSRRPWKRSWSAGSCPGMPHRSPDQGRF (SEQ ID NO: 69), and QERRVPRAAEVPGAQGQQGPRGREEAPRGVRMAVPLLRRMEGAPAGPGGRTAACLSCTSRC LSRRPWKRSWSAGSCPGMPHRSPDQGRF (SEQ ID NO: 70); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO: 76 (KDAARPAYWVPDYEILHCHNCRKEF); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO: 78 (SMPLWDFQGSTMRTSQYVRLTPDER); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO: 80 (YPGIKFEELFPDCIFPSESERDKIK); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO: 82 (LLKTRRILKCSYLYGFFLEPKSTKK); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO: 84 (PFYLGHTIKSGDFEYVGMEGGIVLS); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO: 86 (LLLAGYLAQQYLLLPTPKVIGIDLG); a polypeptide comprising the amino acid sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO: 166 (TSMLILSNLVFLEGNEVGKTYWNRI); and/or variant of any of the preceding polypeptides or polypeptide fragments comprising a conservative amino acid substitution. Also disclosed are CAR T cells engineered to express a receptor (such as, for example, a T cell receptor) that can recognize one or more of the neoantigens disclosed herein. In one aspect, the TCR T cell, CAR T cell, or TIL specific for one or more of the neoantigens disclosed herein can be further engineered to knockout or knockdown Zinc finger and BTB domain-containing protein 7B (ThPOK), Lysine-specific histone demethylase 1 (LSD1), programmed cell death protein (PD1), and/or protein phosphatase (PP2A) to enhance their function such as cytotoxic activity and persistence or survival in vivo after adoptive transfer to a cancer patient. In one aspect, the TCR T cell, CAR T cell, or TIL specific for one or more of the neoantigens disclosed herein is treated with a small molecular inhibitors such 2-PAPC to enhance T cell cytotoxic activity or the ability to proliferate and survive in vivo.
It is understood and herein contemplated that the disclosed that once the sequence of the neoantigens is identified, the skilled artisan would have full knowledge of the nucleic acids that would encode said amino acid neoantigens and it would be well within the skill set of the skilled artisan to make said nucleic acid constructs. Thus, in one aspect, also disclosed herein are nucleic acids encoding a polypeptide for any neoantigen disclosed herein.
1. Homology
It is understood that one way to define any known variants and derivatives or those that might arise, of the disclosed genes and proteins herein is through defining the variants and derivatives in terms of homology and/or identify to specific known sequences. For example SEQ ID NO: 1 sets forth a particular sequence of an MHC Class II epitope peptide. Specifically disclosed are variants of these and other genes and proteins herein disclosed which have at least, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99 percent homology to the stated sequence. Those of skill in the art readily understand how to determine the homology of two proteins or nucleic acids, such as genes. For example, the homology can be calculated after aligning the two sequences so that the homology is at its highest level.
Another way of calculating homology can be performed by published algorithms. Optimal alignment of sequences for comparison may be conducted by the local homology algorithm of Smith and Waterman Adv. Appl. Math. 2: 482 (1981), by the homology alignment algorithm of Needleman and Wunsch, J. MoL Biol. 48: 443 (1970), by the search for similarity method of Pearson and Lipman, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 85: 2444 (1988), by computerized implementations of these algorithms (GAP, BESTFIT, FASTA, and TFASTA in the Wisconsin Genetics Software Package, Genetics Computer Group, 575 Science Dr., Madison, Wis.), or by inspection.
The same types of homology can be obtained for nucleic acids by for example the algorithms disclosed in Zuker, M. Science 244:48-52, 1989, Jaeger et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 86:7706-7710, 1989, Jaeger et al. Methods Enzymol. 183:281-306, 1989 which are herein incorporated by reference for at least material related to nucleic acid alignment.
Nucleic Acids
There are a variety of molecules disclosed herein that are nucleic acid based, including for example the nucleic acids that encode, for example SEQ ID NO: 1, or any of the nucleic acids disclosed herein or fragments thereof, as well as various functional nucleic acids. The disclosed nucleic acids are made up of for example, nucleotides, nucleotide analogs, or nucleotide substitutes. Non-limiting examples of these and other molecules are discussed herein. It is understood that for example, when a vector is expressed in a cell, that the expressed mRNA will typically be made up of A, C, G, and U. Likewise, it is understood that if, for example, an antisense molecule is introduced into a cell or cell environment through for example exogenous delivery, it is advantageous that the antisense molecule be made up of nucleotide analogs that reduce the degradation of the antisense molecule in the cellular environment.
a) Nucleotides and Related Molecules
A nucleotide is a molecule that contains a base moiety, a sugar moiety and a phosphate moiety. Nucleotides can be linked together through their phosphate moieties and sugar moieties creating an internucleoside linkage. The base moiety of a nucleotide can be adenin-9-yl (A), cytosin-1-yl (C), guanin-9-yl (G), uracil-1-yl (U), and thymin-1-yl (T). The sugar moiety of a nucleotide is a ribose or a deoxyribose. The phosphate moiety of a nucleotide is pentavalent phosphate. An non-limiting example of a nucleotide would be 3′-AMP (3′-adenosine monophosphate) or 5′-GMP (5′-guanosine monophosphate). There are many varieties of these types of molecules available in the art and available herein.
A nucleotide analog is a nucleotide which contains some type of modification to either the base, sugar, or phosphate moieties. Modifications to nucleotides are well known in the art and would include for example, 5-methylcytosine (5-me-C), 5-hydroxymethyl cytosine, xanthine, hypoxanthine, and 2-aminoadenine as well as modifications at the sugar or phosphate moieties. There are many varieties of these types of molecules available in the art and available herein.
Nucleotide substitutes are molecules having similar functional properties to nucleotides, but which do not contain a phosphate moiety, such as peptide nucleic acid (PNA). Nucleotide substitutes are molecules that will recognize nucleic acids in a Watson-Crick or Hoogsteen manner, but which are linked together through a moiety other than a phosphate moiety. Nucleotide substitutes are able to conform to a double helix type structure when interacting with the appropriate target nucleic acid. There are many varieties of these types of molecules available in the art and available herein.
It is also possible to link other types of molecules (conjugates) to nucleotides or nucleotide analogs to enhance for example, cellular uptake. Conjugates can be chemically linked to the nucleotide or nucleotide analogs. Such conjugates include but are not limited to lipid moieties such as a cholesterol moiety. (Letsinger et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 1989, 86, 6553-6556). There are many varieties of these types of molecules available in the art and available herein.
A Watson-Crick interaction is at least one interaction with the Watson-Crick face of a nucleotide, nucleotide analog, or nucleotide substitute. The Watson-Crick face of a nucleotide, nucleotide analog, or nucleotide substitute includes the C2, N1, and C6 positions of a purine based nucleotide, nucleotide analog, or nucleotide substitute and the C2, N3, C4 positions of a pyrimidine based nucleotide, nucleotide analog, or nucleotide substitute.
A Hoogsteen interaction is the interaction that takes place on the Hoogsteen face of a nucleotide or nucleotide analog, which is exposed in the major groove of duplex DNA. The Hoogsteen face includes the N7 position and reactive groups (NH2 or 0) at the C6 position of purine nucleotides.
b) Primers and Probes
Disclosed are compositions including primers and probes, which are capable of interacting with the disclosed nucleic acids, such as the neoantigens disclosed herein. In certain embodiments the primers are used to support DNA amplification reactions. Typically the primers will be capable of being extended in a sequence specific manner. Extension of a primer in a sequence specific manner includes any methods wherein the sequence and/or composition of the nucleic acid molecule to which the primer is hybridized or otherwise associated directs or influences the composition or sequence of the product produced by the extension of the primer. Extension of the primer in a sequence specific manner therefore includes, but is not limited to, PCR, DNA sequencing, DNA extension, DNA polymerization, RNA transcription, or reverse transcription. Techniques and conditions that amplify the primer in a sequence specific manner are preferred. In certain embodiments the primers are used for the DNA amplification reactions, such as PCR or direct sequencing. It is understood that in certain embodiments the primers can also be extended using non-enzymatic techniques, where for example, the nucleotides or oligonucleotides used to extend the primer are modified such that they will chemically react to extend the primer in a sequence specific manner. Typically the disclosed primers hybridize with the disclosed nucleic acids or region of the nucleic acids or they hybridize with the complement of the nucleic acids or complement of a region of the nucleic acids.
The size of the primers or probes for interaction with the nucleic acids in certain embodiments can be any size that supports the desired enzymatic manipulation of the primer, such as DNA amplification or the simple hybridization of the probe or primer. A typical primer or probe would be at least 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 125, 150, 175, 200, 225, 250, 275, 300, 325, 350, 375, 400, 425, 450, 475, 500, 550, 600, 650, 700, 750, 800, 850, 900, 950, 1000, 1250, 1500, 1750, 2000, 2250, 2500, 2750, 3000, 3500, or 4000 nucleotides long.
In other embodiments a primer or probe can be less than or equal to 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 125, 150, 175, 200, 225, 250, 275, 300, 325, 350, 375, 400, 425, 450, 475, 500, 550, 600, 650, 700, 750, 800, 850, 900, 950, 1000, 1250, 1500, 1750, 2000, 2250, 2500, 2750, 3000, 3500, or 4000 nucleotides long.
In certain embodiments this product is at least 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 125, 150, 175, 200, 225, 250, 275, 300, 325, 350, 375, 400, 425, 450, 475, 500, 550, 600, 650, 700, 750, 800, 850, 900, 950, 1000, 1250, 1500, 1750, 2000, 2250, 2500, 2750, 3000, 3500, or 4000 nucleotides long.
In other embodiments the product is less than or equal to 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 125, 150, 175, 200, 225, 250, 275, 300, 325, 350, 375, 400, 425, 450, 475, 500, 550, 600, 650, 700, 750, 800, 850, 900, 950, 1000, 1250, 1500, 1750, 2000, 2250, 2500, 2750, 3000, 3500, or 4000 nucleotides long.
Peptides
a) Protein Variants
As discussed herein there are numerous variants of the neoantigens that are known and herein contemplated. Protein variants and derivatives are well understood to those of skill in the art and in can involve amino acid sequence modifications. For example, amino acid sequence modifications typically fall into one or more of three classes: substitutional, insertional or deletional variants. Insertions include amino and/or carboxyl terminal fusions as well as intrasequence insertions of single or multiple amino acid residues. Insertions ordinarily will be smaller insertions than those of amino or carboxyl terminal fusions, for example, on the order of one to four residues. Immunogenic fusion protein derivatives, such as those described in the examples, are made by fusing a polypeptide sufficiently large to confer immunogenicity to the target sequence by cross-linking in vitro or by recombinant cell culture transformed with DNA encoding the fusion. Deletions are characterized by the removal of one or more amino acid residues from the protein sequence. Typically, no more than about from 2 to 6 residues are deleted at any one site within the protein molecule. These variants ordinarily are prepared by site specific mutagenesis of nucleotides in the DNA encoding the protein, thereby producing DNA encoding the variant, and thereafter expressing the DNA in recombinant cell culture. Techniques for making substitution mutations at predetermined sites in DNA having a known sequence are well known, for example M13 primer mutagenesis and PCR mutagenesis. Amino acid substitutions are typically of single residues, but can occur at a number of different locations at once; insertions usually will be on the order of about from 1 to 10 amino acid residues; and deletions will range about from 1 to 30 residues. Deletions or insertions preferably are made in adjacent pairs, i.e. a deletion of 2 residues or insertion of 2 residues. Substitutions, deletions, insertions or any combination thereof may be combined to arrive at a final construct. The mutations must not place the sequence out of reading frame and preferably will not create complementary regions that could produce secondary mRNA structure. Substitutional variants are those in which at least one residue has been removed and a different residue inserted in its place. Such substitutions generally are made in accordance with the following Tables 1 and 2 and are referred to as conservative substitutions.
Substantial changes in function or immunological identity are made by selecting substitutions that are less conservative than those in Table 2, i.e., selecting residues that differ more significantly in their effect on maintaining (a) the structure of the polypeptide backbone in the area of the substitution, for example as a sheet or helical conformation, (b) the charge or hydrophobicity of the molecule at the target site or (c) the bulk of the side chain. The substitutions which in general are expected to produce the greatest changes in the protein properties will be those in which (a) a hydrophilic residue, e.g. seryl or threonyl, is substituted for (or by) a hydrophobic residue, e.g. leucyl, isoleucyl, phenylalanyl, valyl or alanyl; (b) a cysteine or proline is substituted for (or by) any other residue; (c) a residue having an electropositive side chain, e.g., lysyl, arginyl, or histidyl, is substituted for (or by) an electronegative residue, e.g., glutamyl or aspartyl; or (d) a residue having a bulky side chain, e.g., phenylalanine, is substituted for (or by) one not having a side chain, e.g., glycine, in this case, (e) by increasing the number of sites for sulfation and/or glycosylation.
For example, the replacement of one amino acid residue with another that is biologically and/or chemically similar is known to those skilled in the art as a conservative substitution. For example, a conservative substitution would be replacing one hydrophobic residue for another, or one polar residue for another. The substitutions include combinations such as, for example, Gly, Ala; Val, Ile, Leu; Asp, Glu; Asn, Gln; Ser, Thr; Lys, Arg; and Phe, Tyr. Such conservatively substituted variations of each explicitly disclosed sequence are included within the mosaic polypeptides provided herein.
Substitutional or deletional mutagenesis can be employed to insert sites for N-glycosylation (Asn-X-Thr/Ser) or O-glycosylation (Ser or Thr). Deletions of cysteine or other labile residues also may be desirable. Deletions or substitutions of potential proteolysis sites, e.g. Arg, is accomplished for example by deleting one of the basic residues or substituting one by glutaminyl or histidyl residues.
Certain post-translational derivatizations are the result of the action of recombinant host cells on the expressed polypeptide. Glutaminyl and asparaginyl residues are frequently post-translationally deamidated to the corresponding glutamyl and asparyl residues. Alternatively, these residues are deamidated under mildly acidic conditions. Other post-translational modifications include hydroxylation of proline and lysine, phosphorylation of hydroxyl groups of seryl or threonyl residues, methylation of the o-amino groups of lysine, arginine, and histidine side chains (T. E. Creighton, Proteins: Structure and Molecular Properties, W. H. Freeman & Co., San Francisco pp 79-86 [1983]), acetylation of the N-terminal amine and, in some instances, amidation of the C-terminal carboxyl.
It is understood that one way to define the variants and derivatives of the disclosed proteins herein is through defining the variants and derivatives in terms of homology/identity to specific known sequences. Specifically disclosed are variants of these and other proteins herein disclosed which have at least, 70% or 75% or 80% or 85% or 90% or 95% homology to the stated sequence. Those of skill in the art readily understand how to determine the homology of two proteins. For example, the homology can be calculated after aligning the two sequences so that the homology is at its highest level.
Another way of calculating homology can be performed by published algorithms. Optimal alignment of sequences for comparison may be conducted by the local homology algorithm of Smith and Waterman Adv. Appl. Math. 2: 482 (1981), by the homology alignment algorithm of Needleman and Wunsch, J. MoL Biol. 48: 443 (1970), by the search for similarity method of Pearson and Lipman, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 85: 2444 (1988), by computerized implementations of these algorithms (GAP, BESTFIT, FASTA, and TFASTA in the Wisconsin Genetics Software Package, Genetics Computer Group, 575 Science Dr., Madison, Wis.), or by inspection.
The same types of homology can be obtained for nucleic acids by for example the algorithms disclosed in Zuker, M. Science 244:48-52, 1989, Jaeger et al. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 86:7706-7710, 1989, Jaeger et al. Methods Enzymol. 183:281-306, 1989.
It is understood that the description of conservative mutations and homology can be combined together in any combination, such as embodiments that have at least 70% homology to a particular sequence wherein the variants are conservative mutations.
As this specification discusses various proteins and protein sequences it is understood that the nucleic acids that can encode those protein sequences are also disclosed. This would include all degenerate sequences related to a specific protein sequence, i.e. all nucleic acids having a sequence that encodes one particular protein sequence as well as all nucleic acids, including degenerate nucleic acids, encoding the disclosed variants and derivatives of the protein sequences. Thus, while each particular nucleic acid sequence may not be written out herein, it is understood that each and every sequence is in fact disclosed and described herein through the disclosed protein sequence.
It is understood that there are numerous amino acid and peptide analogs which can be incorporated into the disclosed compositions. For example, there are numerous D amino acids or amino acids which have a different functional substituent then the amino acids shown in Table 1 and Table 2. The opposite stereo isomers of naturally occurring peptides are disclosed, as well as the stereo isomers of peptide analogs. These amino acids can readily be incorporated into polypeptide chains by charging tRNA molecules with the amino acid of choice and engineering genetic constructs that utilize, for example, amber codons, to insert the analog amino acid into a peptide chain in a site specific way.
Molecules can be produced that resemble peptides, but which are not connected via a natural peptide linkage. For example, linkages for amino acids or amino acid analogs can include CH2NH—, —CH2S—, —CH2—CH2—, —CH═CH—(cis and trans), —COCH2—, —CH(OH)CH2—, and —CHH2SO—(These and others can be found in Spatola, A. F. in Chemistry and Biochemistry of Amino Acids, Peptides, and Proteins, B. Weinstein, eds., Marcel Dekker, New York, p. 267 (1983); Spatola, A. F., Vega Data (March 1983), Vol. 1, Issue 3, Peptide Backbone Modifications (general review); Morley, Trends Pharm Sci (1980) pp. 463-468; Hudson, D. et al., Int J Pept Prot Res 14:177-185 (1979) (—CH2NH—, CH2CH2—); Spatola et al. Life Sci 38:1243-1249 (1986) (—CH H2—S); Hann J. Chem. Soc Perkin Trans. I 307-314 (1982) (—CH—CH—, cis and trans); Almquist et al. J. Med. Chem. 23:1392-1398 (1980) (—COCH2—); Jennings-White et al. Tetrahedron Lett 23:2533 (1982) (—COCH2—); Szelke et al. European Appln, EP 45665 CA (1982): 97:39405 (1982) (—CH(OH)CH2—); Holladay et al. Tetrahedron. Lett 24:4401-4404 (1983) (—C(OH)CH2—); and Hruby Life Sci 31:189-199 (1982) (—CH2—S—); each of which is incorporated herein by reference. A particularly preferred non-peptide linkage is —CH2NH—. It is understood that peptide analogs can have more than one atom between the bond atoms, such as b-alanine, g-aminobutyric acid, and the like.
Amino acid analogs and analogs and peptide analogs often have enhanced or desirable properties, such as, more economical production, greater chemical stability, enhanced pharmacological properties (half-life, absorption, potency, efficacy, etc.), altered specificity (e.g., a broad-spectrum of biological activities), reduced antigenicity, and others.
D-amino acids can be used to generate more stable peptides, because D amino acids are not recognized by peptidases and such. Systematic substitution of one or more amino acids of a consensus sequence with a D-amino acid of the same type (e.g., D-lysine in place of L-lysine) can be used to generate more stable peptides. Cysteine residues can be used to cyclize or attach two or more peptides together. This can be beneficial to constrain peptides into particular conformations.
4. Pharmaceutical carriers/Delivery of pharmaceutical products
In one aspect, it is understood and herein contemplated that the disclosed neoantigens can be administered as compositions to a subject with a cancer or likely to develop a cancer. Accordingly, disclosed herein are compositions comprising a therapeutically effective amount of one or more of the neoantigens disclosed herein (including, but not limited to peptides, polypeptides, and proteins of the neoantigens). Additionally, disclosed herein are compositions comprising a therapeutically effective amount of one or more CAR T cells, TCR T-cells and/or TILs; wherein the CAR T cell, TCR T cell, and/or TIL has been engineered to express a receptor for one or more of the neoantigens disclosed herein. In one aspect, the TCR T cell, CAR T cell, or TIL specific for one or more of the neoantigens disclosed herein can be further engineered to knockout or knockdown Zinc finger and BTB domain-containing protein 7B (ThPOK), Lysine-specific histone demethylase 1 (LSD1), programmed cell death protein (PD1), and/or Protein phosphatase 2 (PP2A) to enhance their function such as cytotoxic activity and persistence or survival in vivo after adoptive transfer to a cancer patient. In one aspect, the TCR T cell, CAR T cell, or TIL specific for one or more of the neoantigens disclosed herein is treated with a small molecular inhibitors such 2-PAPC to enhance T cell cytotoxic activity or the ability to proliferate and survive in vivo.
As described above, the compositions can also be administered in vivo in a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier. By “pharmaceutically acceptable” is meant a material that is not biologically or otherwise undesirable, i.e., the material may be administered to a subject, along with the nucleic acid or vector, without causing any undesirable biological effects or interacting in a deleterious manner with any of the other components of the pharmaceutical composition in which it is contained. The carrier would naturally be selected to minimize any degradation of the active ingredient and to minimize any adverse side effects in the subject, as would be well known to one of skill in the art.
The compositions may be administered orally, parenterally (e.g., intravenously), by intramuscular injection, by intraperitoneal injection, transdermally, extracorporeally, topically or the like, including topical intranasal administration or administration by inhalant. As used herein, “topical intranasal administration” means delivery of the compositions into the nose and nasal passages through one or both of the nares and can comprise delivery by a spraying mechanism or droplet mechanism, or through aerosolization of the nucleic acid or vector. Administration of the compositions by inhalant can be through the nose or mouth via delivery by a spraying or droplet mechanism. Delivery can also be directly to any area of the respiratory system (e.g., lungs) via intubation. The exact amount of the compositions required will vary from subject to subject, depending on the species, age, weight and general condition of the subject, the severity of the allergic disorder being treated, the particular nucleic acid or vector used, its mode of administration and the like. Thus, it is not possible to specify an exact amount for every composition. However, an appropriate amount can be determined by one of ordinary skill in the art using only routine experimentation given the teachings herein.
Parenteral administration of the composition, if used, is generally characterized by injection. Injectables can be prepared in conventional forms, either as liquid solutions or suspensions, solid forms suitable for solution of suspension in liquid prior to injection, or as emulsions. A more recently revised approach for parenteral administration involves use of a slow release or sustained release system such that a constant dosage is maintained. See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 3,610,795, which is incorporated by reference herein.
The materials may be in solution, suspension (for example, incorporated into microparticles, liposomes, or cells). These may be targeted to a particular cell type via antibodies, receptors, or receptor ligands. The following references are examples of the use of this technology to target specific proteins to tumor tissue (Senter, et al., Bioconjugate Chem., 2:447-451, (1991); Bagshawe, K. D., Br. J. Cancer, 60:275-281, (1989); Bagshawe, et al., Br. J. Cancer, 58:700-703, (1988); Senter, et al., Bioconjugate Chem., 4:3-9, (1993); Battelli, et al., Cancer Immunol. Immunother., 35:421-425, (1992); Pietersz and McKenzie, Immunolog. Reviews, 129:57-80, (1992); and Roffler, et al., Biochem. Pharmacol, 42:2062-2065, (1991)). Vehicles such as “stealth” and other antibody conjugated liposomes (including lipid mediated drug targeting to colonic carcinoma), receptor mediated targeting of DNA through cell specific ligands, lymphocyte directed tumor targeting, and highly specific therapeutic retroviral targeting of murine glioma cells in vivo. The following references are examples of the use of this technology to target specific proteins to tumor tissue (Hughes et al., Cancer Research, 49:6214-6220, (1989); and Litzinger and Huang, Biochimica et Biophysica Acta, 1104:179-187, (1992)). In general, receptors are involved in pathways of endocytosis, either constitutive or ligand induced. These receptors cluster in clathrin-coated pits, enter the cell via clathrin-coated vesicles, pass through an acidified endosome in which the receptors are sorted, and then either recycle to the cell surface, become stored intracellularly, or are degraded in lysosomes. The internalization pathways serve a variety of functions, such as nutrient uptake, removal of activated proteins, clearance of macromolecules, opportunistic entry of viruses and toxins, dissociation and degradation of ligand, and receptor-level regulation. Many receptors follow more than one intracellular pathway, depending on the cell type, receptor concentration, type of ligand, ligand valency, and ligand concentration. Molecular and cellular mechanisms of receptor-mediated endocytosis has been reviewed (Brown and Greene, DNA and Cell Biology 10:6, 399-409 (1991)).
a) Pharmaceutically Acceptable Carriers
The compositions, including antibodies, can be used therapeutically in combination with a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier.
Suitable carriers and their formulations are described in Remington: The Science and Practice of Pharmacy (19th ed.) ed. A. R. Gennaro, Mack Publishing Company, Easton, Pa. 1995. Typically, an appropriate amount of a pharmaceutically-acceptable salt is used in the formulation to render the formulation isotonic. Examples of the pharmaceutically-acceptable carrier include, but are not limited to, saline, Ringer's solution and dextrose solution. The pH of the solution is preferably from about 5 to about 8, and more preferably from about 7 to about 7.5. Further carriers include sustained release preparations such as semipermeable matrices of solid hydrophobic polymers containing the antibody, which matrices are in the form of shaped articles, e.g., films, liposomes or microparticles. It will be apparent to those persons skilled in the art that certain carriers may be more preferable depending upon, for instance, the route of administration and concentration of composition being administered.
Pharmaceutical carriers are known to those skilled in the art. These most typically would be standard carriers for administration of drugs to humans, including solutions such as sterile water, saline, and buffered solutions at physiological pH. The compositions can be administered intramuscularly or subcutaneously. Other compounds will be administered according to standard procedures used by those skilled in the art.
Pharmaceutical compositions may include carriers, thickeners, diluents, buffers, preservatives, surface active agents and the like in addition to the molecule of choice. Pharmaceutical compositions may also include one or more active ingredients such as antimicrobial agents, antiinflammatory agents, anesthetics, and the like.
The pharmaceutical composition may be administered in a number of ways depending on whether local or systemic treatment is desired, and on the area to be treated. Administration may be topically (including ophthalmically, vaginally, rectally, intranasally), orally, by inhalation, or parenterally, for example by intravenous drip, subcutaneous, intraperitoneal or intramuscular injection. The disclosed antibodies can be administered intravenously, intraperitoneally, intramuscularly, subcutaneously, intracavity, or transdermally.
Preparations for parenteral administration include sterile aqueous or non-aqueous solutions, suspensions, and emulsions. Examples of non-aqueous solvents are propylene glycol, polyethylene glycol, vegetable oils such as olive oil, and injectable organic esters such as ethyl oleate. Aqueous carriers include water, alcoholic/aqueous solutions, emulsions or suspensions, including saline and buffered media. Parenteral vehicles include sodium chloride solution, Ringer's dextrose, dextrose and sodium chloride, lactated Ringer's, or fixed oils. Intravenous vehicles include fluid and nutrient replenishers, electrolyte replenishers (such as those based on Ringer's dextrose), and the like. Preservatives and other additives may also be present such as, for example, antimicrobials, anti-oxidants, chelating agents, and inert gases and the like.
Formulations for topical administration may include ointments, lotions, creams, gels, drops, suppositories, sprays, liquids and powders. Conventional pharmaceutical carriers, aqueous, powder or oily bases, thickeners and the like may be necessary or desirable.
Compositions for oral administration include powders or granules, suspensions or solutions in water or non-aqueous media, capsules, sachets, or tablets. Thickeners, flavorings, diluents, emulsifiers, dispersing aids or binders may be desirable.
Some of the compositions may potentially be administered as a pharmaceutically acceptable acid- or base-addition salt, formed by reaction with inorganic acids such as hydrochloric acid, hydrobromic acid, perchloric acid, nitric acid, thiocyanic acid, sulfuric acid, and phosphoric acid, and organic acids such as formic acid, acetic acid, propionic acid, glycolic acid, lactic acid, pyruvic acid, oxalic acid, malonic acid, succinic acid, maleic acid, and fumaric acid, or by reaction with an inorganic base such as sodium hydroxide, ammonium hydroxide, potassium hydroxide, and organic bases such as mono-, di-, trialkyl and aryl amines and substituted ethanolamines.
b) Therapeutic Uses
Effective dosages and schedules for administering the compositions may be determined empirically, and making such determinations is within the skill in the art. The dosage ranges for the administration of the compositions are those large enough to produce the desired effect in which the symptoms of the disorder are effected. The dosage should not be so large as to cause adverse side effects, such as unwanted cross-reactions, anaphylactic reactions, and the like. Generally, the dosage will vary with the age, condition, sex and extent of the disease in the patient, route of administration, or whether other drugs are included in the regimen, and can be determined by one of skill in the art. The dosage can be adjusted by the individual physician in the event of any counterindications. Dosage can vary, and can be administered in one or more dose administrations daily, for one or several days. Guidance can be found in the literature for appropriate dosages for given classes of pharmaceutical products. For example, guidance in selecting appropriate doses for antibodies can be found in the literature on therapeutic uses of antibodies, e.g., Handbook of Monoclonal Antibodies, Ferrone et al., eds., Noges Publications, Park Ridge, N.J., (1985) ch. 22 and pp. 303-357; Smith et al., Antibodies in Human Diagnosis and Therapy, Haber et al., eds., Raven Press, New York (1977) pp. 365-389. A typical daily dosage of the antibody used alone might range from about 1 μg/kg to up to 100 mg/kg of body weight or more per day, depending on the factors mentioned above.
1. Method of Treating Cancer
The disclosed compositions can be used to treat any disease where uncontrolled cellular proliferation occurs such as cancers. Accordingly, in one aspect, disclosed herein are methods of stimulating an immunological response against a cancer or treating, inhibiting, and/or preventing a cancer comprising administering to a subject a composition comprising a therapeutically effective amount of any of the neoantigens disclosed herein (for example SEQ ID NO: 2, SEQ ID NO: 3, SEQ ID NO: 4, SEQ ID NO: 5, SEQ ID NO: 6, SEQ ID NO: 7, SEQ ID NO: 9, SEQ ID NO: 12, SEQ ID NO: 14, SEQ ID NO: 17, SEQ ID NO: 19, SEQ ID NO: 21, SEQ ID NO: 22, SEQ ID NO: 23, SEQ ID NO: 24, SEQ ID NO: 26, SEQ ID NO: 28, SEQ ID NO: 29, SEQ ID NO: 30, SEQ ID NO: 32, SEQ ID NO: 33, SEQ ID NO: 34, SEQ ID NO: 35, SEQ ID NO: 36, SEQ ID NO: 37, SEQ ID NO: 39, SEQ ID NO: 41, SEQ ID NO: 42, SEQ ID NO: 43, SEQ ID NO: 44, SEQ ID NO: 46, SEQ ID NO: 49, SEQ ID NO: 50, SEQ ID NO: 51, SEQ ID NO: 52, SEQ ID NO: 53, SEQ ID NO: 54, SEQ ID NO: 57, SEQ ID NO: 60, SEQ ID NO: 61, SEQ ID NO: 62, SEQ ID NO: 63, SEQ ID NO: 64, SEQ ID NO: 67, SEQ ID NO: 68, SEQ ID NO: 69, SEQ ID NO: 70, SEQ ID NO: 73, SEQ ID NO: 74, SEQ ID NO: 76, SEQ ID NO: 78, SEQ ID NO: 80, SEQ ID NO: 82, SEQ ID NO: 84, SEQ ID NO: 86, SEQ ID NO: 88, SEQ ID NO: 89, SEQ ID NO: 90, SEQ ID NO: 91, SEQ ID NO: 92, SEQ ID NO: 93, SEQ ID NO: 94, SEQ ID NO: 95, SEQ ID NO: 96, SEQ ID NO: 97, SEQ ID NO: 98, SEQ ID NO: 99, SEQ ID NO: 100, SEQ ID NO: 101, SEQ ID NO: 102, SEQ ID NO: 103, SEQ ID NO: 104, SEQ ID NO: 105, SEQ ID NO: 106, SEQ ID NO: 107, SEQ ID NO: 108, SEQ ID NO: 109, SEQ ID NO: 110, SEQ ID NO: 111, SEQ ID NO: 112, SEQ ID NO: 113, SEQ ID NO: 114, SEQ ID NO: 115, SEQ ID NO: 116, SEQ ID NO: 117, SEQ ID NO: 118, SEQ ID NO: 119, SEQ ID NO: 120, SEQ ID NO: 121, SEQ ID NO: 122, SEQ ID NO: 123, SEQ ID NO: 124, SEQ ID NO: 125, SEQ ID NO: 126, SEQ ID NO: 127, SEQ ID NO: 128, SEQ ID NO: 129, SEQ ID NO: 130, SEQ ID NO: 131, SEQ ID NO: 132, SEQ ID NO: 133, SEQ ID NO: 134, SEQ ID NO: 135, SEQ ID NO: 136, SEQ ID NO: 137, SEQ ID NO: 138, SEQ ID NO: 139, SEQ ID NO: 140, SEQ ID NO: 141, SEQ ID NO: 142, SEQ ID NO: 143, SEQ ID NO: 144, SEQ ID NO: 145, SEQ ID NO: 146, SEQ ID NO: 147, SEQ ID NO: 148, SEQ ID NO: 149, SEQ ID NO: 150, SEQ ID NO: 151, SEQ ID NO: 152, SEQ ID NO: 153, SEQ ID NO: 154, SEQ ID NO: 155, SEQ ID NO: 156, SEQ ID NO: 157, SEQ ID NO: 158, SEQ ID NO: 159, SEQ ID NO: 160, SEQ ID NO: 161, SEQ ID NO: 162, and/or SEQ ID NO: 163) and/or any neoantigens identified by the method of identifying a neoantigen disclosed herein. In one aspect, it is understood and herein contemplated that the disclosed neoantigens include peptide, polypeptides, and/or proteins of any disclosed neoantigen.
The term “therapeutically effective” refers to the amount of the composition used is of sufficient quantity to ameliorate one or more causes or symptoms of a disease or disorder. Such amelioration only requires a reduction or alteration, not necessarily elimination.
The term “treatment” refers to the medical management of a patient with the intent to cure, ameliorate, stabilize, or prevent a disease, pathological condition, or disorder. This term includes active treatment, that is, treatment directed specifically toward the improvement of a disease, pathological condition, or disorder, and also includes causal treatment, that is, treatment directed toward removal of the cause of the associated disease, pathological condition, or disorder. In addition, this term includes palliative treatment, that is, treatment designed for the relief of symptoms rather than the curing of the disease, pathological condition, or disorder; preventative treatment, that is, treatment directed to minimizing or partially or completely inhibiting the development of the associated disease, pathological condition, or disorder; and supportive treatment, that is, treatment employed to supplement another specific therapy directed toward the improvement of the associated disease, pathological condition, or disorder.
A non-limiting list of different types of cancers that can be treated by the disclosed methods is as follows: lymphomas (Hodgkins and non-Hodgkins), leukemias, carcinomas, carcinomas of solid tissues, squamous cell carcinomas, adenocarcinomas, sarcomas, gliomas, high grade gliomas, blastomas, neuroblastomas, plasmacytomas, histiocytomas, melanomas, adenomas, hypoxic tumors, myelomas, AIDS-related lymphomas or sarcomas, metastatic cancers, or cancers in general.
A representative but non-limiting list of cancers that the disclosed compositions can be used to treat is the following: lymphoma, B cell lymphoma, T cell lymphoma, mycosis fungoides, Hodgkin's Disease, myeloid leukemia, bladder cancer, brain cancer, nervous system cancer, head and neck cancer, squamous cell carcinoma of head and neck, lung cancers such as small cell lung cancer and non-small cell lung cancer, neuroblastoma/glioblastoma, ovarian cancer, pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, skin cancer, liver cancer, melanoma, squamous cell carcinomas of the mouth, throat, larynx, and lung, colon cancer, cervical cancer, cervical carcinoma, breast cancer, and epithelial cancer, renal cancer, genitourinary cancer, pulmonary cancer, esophageal carcinoma, head and neck carcinoma, large bowel cancer, hematopoietic cancers; testicular cancer; colon cancer, and/or rectal cancers.
2. Methods of Treating Autoimmune Diseases
In one aspect, it is understood and herein contemplated that the disclosed neoantigens can be used in the treatment of autoimmune diseases. As used herein, “autoimmune disease” refers to a set of diseases, disorders, or conditions resulting from an adaptive immune response (T cell and/or B cell response) against the host organism. In such conditions, either by way of mutation or other underlying cause, the host T cells and/or B cells and/or antibodies are no longer able to distinguish host cells from non-self-antigens and attack host cells baring an antigen for which they are specific. Examples of autoimmune diseases that can cause an inflammatory skin disorder include, but are not limited to Achalasia, Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, Acute motor axonal neuropathy, Addison's disease, Adiposis dolorosa, Adult Still's disease, Agammaglobulinemia, Alopecia areata, Alzheimer's disease, Amyloidosis, Ankylosing spondylitis, Anti-GBM/Anti-TBM nephritis, Antiphospholipid syndrome, Aplastic anemia, Autoimmune angioedema, Autoimmune dysautonomia, Autoimmune encephalomyelitis, Autoimmune enteropathy, Autoimmune hemolytic anemia, Autoimmune hepatitis, Autoimmune inner ear disease (AIED), Autoimmune myocarditis, Autoimmune oophoritis, Autoimmune orchitis, Autoimmune pancreatitis, Autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome, Autoimmune retinopathy, Autoimmune urticaria, Axonal & neuronal neuropathy (AMAN), Baló disease, Behcet's disease, Benign mucosal emphigoid, Bickerstaffs encephalitis, Bullous pemphigoid, Castleman disease (CD), Celiac disease, Chagas disease, Chronic fatigue syndrome, Chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP), Chronic recurrent multifocal osteomyelitis (CRMO), Churg-Strauss Syndrome (CSS), Eosinophilic Granulomatosis (EGPA), Cicatricial pemphigoid, Cogan's syndrome, Cold agglutinin disease, Congenital heart block, Coxsackie myocarditis, CREST syndrome, Crohn's disease, Dermatitis herpetiformis, Dermatomyositis, Devic's disease (neuromyelitis optica), Diabetes mellitus type 1, Discoid lupus, Dressler's syndrome, Endometriosis, Enthesitis, Eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), Eosinophilic fasciitis, Erythema nodosum, Essential mixed cryoglobulinemia, Evans syndrome, Felty syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Fibrosing alveolitis, Giant cell arteritis (temporal arteritis), Giant cell myocarditis, Glomerulonephritis, Goodpasture's syndrome, Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis, Graves' disease, Guillain-Barre syndrome, Hashimoto's encephalopathy, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, Hemolytic anemia, Henoch-Schonlein purpura (HSP), Herpes gestationis or pemphigoid gestationis (PG), Hidradenitis Suppurativa (HS) (Acne Inversa), Hypogammalglobulinemia, IgA Nephropathy, IgG4-related sclerosing disease, Immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), Inclusion body myositis (IBM), Interstitial cystitis (IC), Inflamatory Bowel Disease (IBD), Juvenile arthritis, Juvenile diabetes (Type 1 diabetes), Juvenile myositis (JM), Kawasaki disease, Lambert-Eaton syndrome, Leukocytoclastic vasculitis, Lichen planus, Lichen sclerosus, Ligneous conjunctivitis, Linear IgA disease (LAD), Lupus nephritis, Lupus vasculitis, Lyme disease chronic, Meniere's disease, Microscopic polyangiitis (MPA), Mixed connective tissue disease (MCTD), Mooren's ulcer, Mucha-Habermann disease, Multifocal Motor Neuropathy (MMN) or MMNCB, Multiple sclerosis, Myasthenia gravis, Myositis, Narcolepsy, Neonatal Lupus, Neuromyelitis optica, Neutropenia, Ocular cicatricial pemphigoid, Optic neuritis, Ord's thyroiditis, Palindromic rheumatism (PR), PANDAS, Paraneoplastic cerebellar degeneration (PCD), Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH), Parry Romberg syndrome, Pars planitis (peripheral uveitis), Parsonnage-Turner syndrome, Pemphigus, Peripheral neuropathy, Perivenous encephalomyelitis, Pernicious anemia (PA), POEMS syndrome, Polyarteritis nodosa, Polyglandular syndromes type I, II, III, Polymyalgia rheumatica, Polymyositis, Postmyocardial infarction syndrome, Postpericardiotomy syndrome, Primary biliary cirrhosis, Primary sclerosing cholangitis, Progesterone dermatitis, Psoriasis, Psoriatic arthritis, Pure red cell aplasia (PRCA), Pyoderma gangrenosum, Raynaud's phenomenon, Reactive Arthritis, Reflex sympathetic dystrophy, Relapsing polychondritis, Restless legs syndrome (RLS), Retroperitoneal fibrosis, Rheumatic fever, Rheumatoid arthritis, Rheumatoid vasculitis, Sarcoidosis, Schmidt syndrome, Schnitzler syndrome, Scleritis, Scleroderma, Sjögren's syndrome, Sperm & testicular autoimmunity, Stiff person syndrome (SPS), Subacute bacterial endocarditis (SBE), Susac's syndrome, Sydenham chorea, Sympathetic ophthalmia (SO), Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, Systemic scleroderma, Takayasu's arteritis, Temporal arteritis/Giant cell arteritis, Thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP), Tolosa-Hunt syndrome (THS), Transverse myelitis, Type 1 diabetes, Ulcerative colitis (UC), Undifferentiated connective tissue disease (UCTD), Urticaria, Urticarial vasculitis, Uveitis, Vasculitis, Vitiligo, Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada Disease, and Wegener's granulomatosis (or Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis (GPA)). Accordingly, in one aspect, disclosed herein are methods of stimulating an immunological response against an autoimmune disease or treating, inhibiting, and/or preventing an autoimmune disease comprising administering to a subject a composition comprising a therapeutically effective amount of any of the neoantigens disclosed herein (for example SEQ ID NO: 2, SEQ ID NO: 3, SEQ ID NO: 4, SEQ ID NO: 5, SEQ ID NO: 6, SEQ ID NO: 7, SEQ ID NO: 9, SEQ ID NO: 12, SEQ ID NO: 14, SEQ ID NO: 17, SEQ ID NO: 19, SEQ ID NO: 21, SEQ ID NO: 22, SEQ ID NO: 23, SEQ ID NO: 24, SEQ ID NO: 26, SEQ ID NO: 28, SEQ ID NO: 29, SEQ ID NO: 30, SEQ ID NO: 32, SEQ ID NO: 33, SEQ ID NO: 34, SEQ ID NO: 35, SEQ ID NO: 36, SEQ ID NO: 37, SEQ ID NO: 39, SEQ ID NO: 41, SEQ ID NO: 42, SEQ ID NO: 43, SEQ ID NO: 44, SEQ ID NO: 46, SEQ ID NO: 49, SEQ ID NO: 50, SEQ ID NO: 51, SEQ ID NO: 52, SEQ ID NO: 53, SEQ ID NO: 54, SEQ ID NO: 57, SEQ ID NO: 60, SEQ ID NO: 61, SEQ ID NO: 62, SEQ ID NO: 63, SEQ ID NO: 64, SEQ ID NO: 67, SEQ ID NO: 68, SEQ ID NO: 69, SEQ ID NO: 70, SEQ ID NO: 73, SEQ ID NO: 74, SEQ ID NO: 76, SEQ ID NO: 78, SEQ ID NO: 80, SEQ ID NO: 82, SEQ ID NO: 84, SEQ ID NO: 86, SEQ ID NO: 88, SEQ ID NO: 89, SEQ ID NO: 90, SEQ ID NO: 91, SEQ ID NO: 92, SEQ ID NO: 93, SEQ ID NO: 94, SEQ ID NO: 95, SEQ ID NO: 96, SEQ ID NO: 97, SEQ ID NO: 98, SEQ ID NO: 99, SEQ ID NO: 100, SEQ ID NO: 101, SEQ ID NO: 102, SEQ ID NO: 103, SEQ ID NO: 104, SEQ ID NO: 105, SEQ ID NO: 106, SEQ ID NO: 107, SEQ ID NO: 108, SEQ ID NO: 109, SEQ ID NO: 110, SEQ ID NO: 111, SEQ ID NO: 112, SEQ ID NO: 113, SEQ ID NO: 114, SEQ ID NO: 115, SEQ ID NO: 116, SEQ ID NO: 117, SEQ ID NO: 118, SEQ ID NO: 119, SEQ ID NO: 120, SEQ ID NO: 121, SEQ ID NO: 122, SEQ ID NO: 123, SEQ ID NO: 124, SEQ ID NO: 125, SEQ ID NO: 126, SEQ ID NO: 127, SEQ ID NO: 128, SEQ ID NO: 129, SEQ ID NO: 130, SEQ ID NO: 131, SEQ ID NO: 132, SEQ ID NO: 133, SEQ ID NO: 134, SEQ ID NO: 135, SEQ ID NO: 136, SEQ ID NO: 137, SEQ ID NO: 138, SEQ ID NO: 139, SEQ ID NO: 140, SEQ ID NO: 141, SEQ ID NO: 142, SEQ ID NO: 143, SEQ ID NO: 144, SEQ ID NO: 145, SEQ ID NO: 146, SEQ ID NO: 147, SEQ ID NO: 148, SEQ ID NO: 149, SEQ ID NO: 150, SEQ ID NO: 151, SEQ ID NO: 152, SEQ ID NO: 153, SEQ ID NO: 154, SEQ ID NO: 155, SEQ ID NO: 156, SEQ ID NO: 157, SEQ ID NO: 158, SEQ ID NO: 159, SEQ ID NO: 160, SEQ ID NO: 161, SEQ ID NO: 162, and/or SEQ ID NO: 163) and/or any neoantigens identified by the method of identifying a neoantigen disclosed herein. In one aspect, it is understood and herein contemplated that the disclosed neoantigens include peptide, polypeptides, and/or proteins of any disclosed neoantigen.
The following examples are put forth so as to provide those of ordinary skill in the art with a complete disclosure and description of how the compounds, compositions, articles, devices and/or methods claimed herein are made and evaluated, and are intended to be purely exemplary and are not intended to limit the disclosure. Efforts have been made to ensure accuracy with respect to numbers (e.g., amounts, temperature, etc.), but some errors and deviations have been accounted for. Unless indicated otherwise, parts are parts by weight, temperature is in ° C. or is at ambient temperature, and pressure is at or near atmospheric.
Tumor regression induced by checkpoint blockade therapy and T-cell-based immunotherapy depends on T-cell recognition of tumor antigens, particularly mutation-derived neoantigens. Increasing evidence indicates that tumor mutation loads are positively correlated with clinical response to checkpoint blockade therapy. However, despite the relatively larger numbers of somatic mutations in cancer tissues, the number of neoantigens identified from human cancer patients using tumor-reactive T cells has been unexpectedly low. The molecular mechanisms underlying the low number of neoantigens for T cell recognition remain poorly understood.
The mutated proteins must be naturally processed to short peptides [generally 9 amino acids for MHC class I molecules and variable length (13-15 amino acids) for MHC-II molecules] with specific MHC-I or -II binding motifs, and then presented on the cell surface for T cell stimulation. Furthermore, the binding affinity of neoantigens to MHC-I or -II molecules is a critical determinant of its immunogenicity and dependent on MHC-I (HLA-A, -B and -C) or MHC-II (HLA-DR, -DQ and DP) molecules. More importantly, there is accumulating evidence supporting that the mutated amino acid of neoantigenic peptides either increases the binding affinity of peptide-MHC complexes or triggers T cell receptor (TCR) to elicit T cell response through MHC/peptide-TCR contact. Therefore, antigen processing, HLA genotypes and TCRs can influence the number and quality of neoantigens that elicit T cell response against cancer cells. Recent studies show that tumor cells may develop multiple strategies to invade immune destruction by regulating antigen processing and specific loss of HLA alleles, thus rendering them susceptible or resistant to immunotherapy. Despite recent identification of many HLA class I-restricted neoantigens and their importance in cancer immunotherapy, growing evidence indicates that neoantigen-specific CD4+ T cells and their cognate neoantigens play a critical role in tumor regression. However, the current prediction programs for neoantigens are not accurate, particularly for MHC II-restricted neoantigens owing to the open pockets of MHC II molecules, thus limiting our ability to identify the full-spectrum of immunogenic neoantigens.
Because of the importance of mutation-derived neoantigens in tumor regression induced by checkpoint blockade therapy, a systemic approach may be required for identifying mutation-derived neoantigens for better understanding of T-cell recognition repertoire and potential mechanisms that control the number and quality of neoantigens for T cell recognition. Furthermore, whether a single T-cell receptor (TCR) can recognize two or more neoantigens in cancer patients remains largely unknown. In this study, is described a systemic approach to identify all possible mutation-derived neoantigens recognized by CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, and discover the immunodominance of neoantigen recognition by T cell lines and clones derived from cancer patients. The immunodominant neoantigen recognition by T cells is further supported by T cell clone analysis, intracellular staining and TCR profiling of primary T cells. Interestingly, one single TCR has the ability to recognize two neoantigen epitopes in an MHC II restricted fashion, while another TCR recognizes a MHC-I restricted neoantigen epitope when it is expressed in CD8+ T cells, but recognizes a MHC II-restricted neoantigen epitope when it is expressed in CD4+ T cells.
a) Results
To systemically identify the maximal number of neoantigens recognized by T cells, primary tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) lines were generated from fresh cancer tissues that had been surgically removed from two melanoma patients (#135 and #136). The resultant two TIL cell lines consisted of 54.5% CD4+, 41.9% CD8+ T cells (#135) and 82.2% CD4+, 17.2% CD8+ T cells (#136) and elicited tumor-specific responses against 135 mel and 136 mel tumor cells, respectively (
Whole-exome sequencing was performed on libraries generated from genomic DNAs of 135 mel and 135TIL cells. Based on the next-generation sequencing results, around 40,000 single nucleotide variations (SNVs) were distinguished in 135 mel and 135TIL respectively after alignment with the Human Genome Version 19 (hg19). Then a multiple-step filtering pipeline was applied to determine the lower bound of SNV frequency, remove common variations in tumor and normal T cells and limit the SNV type. Finally, 232 somatic missense mutations unique to 135 mel tumor cells (
To identify true neoantigens among the TMGs recognized by tumor-reactive T cells, HEK293 cells engineered to express MHC-I (HLA-A1, HLA-B8 or HLA-C7) and/or MHC-II molecules (HLA-DR1, HLA-DR3, HLA-DR4, HLA-DR11 and/or HLA-DP4) were used as artificial antigen-presenting cells (APCs). Based on HLA typing of patient #135, 293T-A1 and 293T-B8 (which naturally express HLA-C7) were generated for MHC-I antigen presentation, and 293IMDR3/DP4 and 293IMDR4/DP4 (expressing various HLA-DR molecules and HLA-DP4) for MHC-II antigen presentation. Neoantigens were screened for T cell recognition by transfection of 24 TMG constructs into 2931IMDR3/DP4 and 293IMDR4/DP4 cells, respectively, followed by adding CD4+135TILs for co-culture overnight. Significant IFN-γ release was found from T cells that were co-cultured with 293IMDR3/DP4 or 293IMDR4/DP4 cells transfected with TMG6, TMG17 or TMG18 (
To identify MHC-I restricted neoantigens, 293T-A1 or 293T-B8 cells were co-transfected with 24 TMGs, followed by co-culture with CD8+135TIL cells, and found that CD8+ 135TIL cells recognized TMG1 presented by 293T-B8 cells, as well as TMG14 presented by 293T-A1 cells (
Because the 293-engineered APCs do not express all HLA types, immortalized autologous APCs (135EBV-B) were used to serve as APCs for identification of all possible neoantigens presented different MHC-I and II molecules. Due to low transfection efficiency of EBV-B cells, in vitro transcribed (IVT) RNA of 24 TMGs were generated and then electroporated them into 135EBV-B cells, followed by adding 135TIL cells for antigen recognition based on cytokine release assay. All neoantigen-containing TMGs identified above positively responded for T cell recognition, but one new construct (TMG7) presented by EBV-B cells was identified that was strongly recognized by 135TIL, indicating more neoantigens presented by HLA molecules that the artificial APCs did not cover (
It is shown herein that tumor-reactive T cells are capable of recognizing T cell epitopes derived alternative open reading frames (ORF) and long-noncoding genes. Thus, immunogenic antigens can be generated from various sources or mechanisms [such as alternative ORFs, noncoding regions (3′ and 5′ UTRs, introns, noncoding RNA)]. To explore the possibility that some tumor-reactive T cells can recognize the cryptic T cell epitope, rather than just in the coding region based on exome sequence, the established CD4+ T-cell clones were tested for their ability recognize four newly identified MHC-II neoantigens, and CD8+ T-cell clones for their ability to recognize three MHC-1 neoantigens in 135 mel. Among all T cell clones, two T cell clones were identified that recognized 135 mel tumor cells, but did not respond to any neoantigen identified. A representative data are shown in
Using several different approaches (293-engineered APCs and B cells, as well as different libraries) and tumor-reactive T cells (TIL lines and clones), 6 MHC-II antigens (4 mutation-derived neoantigens and 2 derived from alternative ORF and 3′ UTR region) were identified and 3 MHC-I neoantigens in 135 mel tumor cells. It appears that the number of neoantigens recognized by T cells is rather limited, even though there are 232 somatic mutations (Table 3). To extend the findings, exome sequencing of genomic DNAs isolated from the second patient tumor (136 mel) and 136TIL cells (as a control) was performed and identified 348 somatic mutations that were unique to 136 tumor cells (
To identify MHC-I neoantigens, MHC-I expressing Cos7 cells were transfected (Cos7-A1, Cos7-B8 and Cos7-C7) cells with 35 TMGs, respectively, followed by adding CD8+ T cells isolated from 136 TILs. ELISA analysis revealed that one TMG (i.e. TMG2) was positive for activating T cell response in Cos7-A1, but not in Cos7-B8 or Cos7-C7 cells (
As shown in 135 mel, ADIPOR2 and LAGE1b were identified as tumor antigens recognized by T cell clones that were in relatively low abundance in the bulk TIL population. Thus, T cell clones generated from 136TILs were tested for their ability to recognize the newly identified as well as unknown neoantigens. 293IMDR1/DP4 and 293IMDR11/DP4 cells were transfected with 35 TMGs, respectively, followed by co-culturing with T cells clones for overnight. It was found that CD4+136-C13 and 136-C22 T cell clones were capable of recognizing TMG13 and TMG8 presented by 293IMDR1/DP4 cells (
Using systemic and multiple approaches, 8 cancer neoantigens were identified in 135 mel and 7 neoantigens in 136 mel. To understand the potential mechanisms that restrain the number of neoantigens that could induce T cell response, it was asked whether these neoantigens were equally recognized by T cells. To test this possibility, 78 CD4+ tumor-reactive T-cell clones established from 135TILs were tested for their ability to recognize neoantigens, and unexpectedly found that 69 of 78 T cell clones (88%) were capable of recognizing the PCDHB16 neoantigen in 293IMDR4/DP4 cells, while 3 (3.8%) recognized SPATA13, 3 (3.8%) recognized PCDHB7, and 1 (1.3%) recognized ATG5 (
To exclude the possibility that T cell growth selection during T cell cloning may contribute to the observed immunodominance, primary neoantigen-specific T cell population (without long-time culture and expansion) were freshly generated and performed intracellular cytokine staining after specific neoantigen peptide stimulation, and found that tumor-reactive CD4+ T cell populations accounted for 32.7% in the total T cell population when stimulated with 135 mel tumor cells. Importantly, PCDHB16 neoantigen-specific CD4+ T cell population accounted for 30.2% in the total T cell population (
Interestingly a similar recognition pattern was observed in the second patient-derived T cells (136TIL) for their neoantigen recognition. Intracellular staining of the freshly generated 136TIL population after stimulation with fibroblasts loaded with neoantigen peptide pools or individual one showed that tumor-reactive of CD4+ or CD8+ T cells accounted for 24.8% and 14.6% in the total T cell population, respectively (
Although T cell clones and intracellular staining analysis demonstrate immunodominant neoantigen recognition patterns by T cells, it is not clear whether immunodominant neoantigens are recognized by T cells with the same or different TCR α and β chains. To address this issue, PCDHB16 neoantigen-specific CD4+ T cells were isolated by FACS sorting of PCDHB16-neoantigen T cells from freshly generated bulk T cells after stimulated PCDHB16 neoepitope peptide-pulsed 135EBV-B cells. Using the similar approach, MPG-specific CD8+ T cells were also purified from freshly generated bulk T cells after stimulated MPG neoepitope peptide-pulsed 135EBV-B cells. Genomic DNAs were isolated from the two purified neoantigen-specific T cell populations, as well as the parental bulk T cells, and used as templates for TCR β-chain CDR3 repertoire amplification. Since there is only one copy of genomic DNA in a single T cell, specific TCR β-chain sequence abundance can represent the frequency of neoantigen-specific T cells in the total T cell population. TCRβ CDR3 were then amplified with a set of primers targeting mature V-D-J rearranged T cells. After the amplicons (from PCDHB16-, MPG-specific T cells and bulk 135TIL) were subjected to deep-sequenced via next-generation sequencing (reads>100,000 per sample), followed by bioinformatic analysis and TCR repertoire alignment. Dysfunctional TCR sequences and redundant sequences in all three groups were removed. PCDHB16 and MPG neoantigen-specific TCR sequences (CDR3β VDJ) with top frequencies (>0.001%) were identified in the sequencing result and used to determine the relative frequencies of neoantigen-specific TCRs in the total T cell population (
To further understand the cause and impact of immunodominant neoantigens on immunotherapy, it was hypothesized that immunodominant neoantigens may be highly expressed and presented by all tumor cells, while cryptic (subdominant) neoantigens are expressed and presented by some, but not all tumor cells. To test this possibility, single tumor-cell clones of 135 mel were generated by limited dilution (0.3 cells/well) in 96-well plates. Each clone was expanded from one single 135 mel cell and then tested for their recognition by different neoantigen-specific T-cell clones. As expected, the PCDHB16-specific T-cell clone 1H1 recognized every single tumor cell clone that was generated, but other subdominant neoantigen-specific T-cell clones (such as 2C10 specific for PCDHB7 and JF6 specific for SPATA13) recognized only a few of single tumor cell clones (
To further demonstrate in vivo recognition of single tumor cell clones by different neoantigen-specific T cells, 135 mel cells were injected in NSG mice at day 0 and followed by treatment with adoptive transfer of different neoantigen-specific T cell clones (1H1 specific for PCDHB16 and 2C10 specific for PCDHB7) on day 15. Exogenous interleukin-2 was given on day 15 for three consecutive days to maintain T cell proliferation and survival in vivo (
Because of large TCR sequence diversity for the same neoantigen, it was noticed that a few tumor-reactive T-cell clones for the dominant neoantigen PCGHB16 had cross-reactivity against other neoantigens (ADIPOR2) (
The CD4+ T-cell clone 135-C76 was analyzed for dual recognition of the PCDHB16 neoantigen presented by HLA-DP4 molecules and RPN2 neoantigens presented by HLA-A1 molecules (
CD8+ and CD4+ T cells are the major components of T cell-based antitumor immunity. CD8+ T cells, also known as cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL), are capable of specific antigen recognition presented by MHC-I molecules and have high cytotoxicity to kill target cells. CD4+ T cells also show specific antigen recognition presented by MHC-II molecules but much lower killing ability than CD8+ T cells. Although the data of T-cell clones of 135TIL show rather high cytolytic activity when targeting PCDHB16 neoantigen, in most cases CD4+ antigen-specific T cells have rare killing ability when they recognize target cells. Thus it will be a new challenge to reprogram CD4+ T cells and improve their cytolytic activity. The transcription factor T-helper-inducing POZ/Krueppel-like factor (ThPOK) and is a master regulator of CD4+ T cell development and negatively regulates the cytolytic ability of CD4+ T cells. After immigration from the thymus, naïve CD4+ T cells maintain the expression of ThPOK, indicating that ThPOK can still play important roles for the maintenance of CD4+ T cells phenotype and function.
To address this problem, single T cell clones were generated from 135 mel cancer cell-reactive CD4+ TIL via limited dilution. Cytotoxicity analysis of those T-cell clones were performed with expanded T-cell clones, showing different cytotoxic ability in each T cell clone (
To abolish the expression of ThPOK in antigen-specific CD4+ human T cells, lentiviral shRNA plasmid from the human shRNA library was applied to degrade ThPOK mRNA generation. Western blotting analysis confirmed ThPOK was effectively knockdown 72 h after lentiviral transduction in CD4+135TILs (
Based on the results in vitro, the 135 mel mouse model was applied to test knockdown of ThPOK in vivo. 135 mel tumor cells were inoculated into the NSG mice. CD4+135TIL modified by ThPOK shRNA lentiviruses were adoptively transferred on the 5th day after the tumor inoculation, together with unmodified CD4+135TIL and non-specific CD4+ T cells. From day 5 to day25, 135 mel growth in each group was observed. Tumor growth treated by ThPOK-knockdown CD4+135TIL was inhibited significantly, leaving the smallest tumor size, compared to unmodified CD4+135TIL and non-specific CD4+ T cells (
It was hypothesized that the improvement killing ability of CD4+ T cells due to ThPOK knockdown is procedure of T-cell reprogramming via epigenetic regulation. To distinguish how ThPOK reprogrammed CD4+ T cells to cytolytic CD4+ T cells, a screening of A2ESO TCR-transduced CD4+ T cells treated by various epigenetic inhibitors was performed. After measuring the change of cytotoxicity of CD4+ TCR-T cells against tumor, it was found that 2-PCPA, the inhibitor of Lysine-specific histone demethylase 1A (LSD1) was the only one inhibitor which dramatically enhanced the cytolytic activity of CD4+ TCR-T cells, that was similar as depletion of ThPOK (FIG. 18A). To further investigate the correlation between ThPOK and LSD1, immunoprecipitation screening was performed by overexpression tagged proteins in HEK293T host cells with various epigenetic regulators and ThPOK. Suprisingly, LSD1 showed the strongest binding with ThPOK among all epigenetic regulators (
To identify key regulators of the generation and maintenance of stem cell-like memory T cells (Tscm), an in vitro small molecules screening platform was established that works directly on ex vivo primary human T cells. Briefly, T cells were activated with plate-bound OKT3 and treated them with small molecules including different metabolites and inhibitors. Half volume of culture medium was changed, and metabolites or inhibitors were added every 2 or 3 days. The memory phenotypes of both CD4+ and CD8+ T cell populations were detected at day 12 through staining with key memory markers CD45RO, CCR7 and CD62L. Tscm subset in this platform was identified as CD45RO−, CCR7+ and CD62L+ population by flow cytometry. In activated T cells that don't contain naïve T cells, these three markers were able to identify three memory T cells subsets, Tscm, Tcm and Tem (Lugli et al., 2013). Small molecules that were extremely toxic and dramatically suppressed T cells growth were excluded from this platform. With this method of T cells culture, T cells differentiated significantly and very limited percentage of Tscm cells in both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells can be obtained. 2-PCPA, an inhibitor of LSD1, was identified as the only one positive regulator of Tscm generation that increased the population of Tscm in both CD4+ and CD8+ T cells (
To test how the inhibition of LSD1 by 2-PCPA treatment affects TCR-T cells, 2-PCPA (8 uM) was directly administered at the beginning of TCR-T cell generation. Activated human T cells were transduced on day 2 and day 3 with A2ESO TCR viruses that were packaged by PG13-A2ESO TCR clone. Results showed that 2-PCPA treatment increased both Tscm and Tcm percentages in A2ESO TCR-T cells, indicating a less-differentiated phenotype (
The results of 2-PCPA-treated A2ESO TCR-T cells in vitro showed less-differentiated memory phenotype and increased function and proliferation, an attempt was made to test to in vivo effect of 2-PCPA-treated A2ESO TCR-T cells. A breast cancer model was established using MDA-MB-231 cells expressing HLA-A2 and NY-ESO-1 antigen in 8 weeks old NOD-scid IL2Rγnull (NSG) mice. The in vivo anti-tumor function of A2ESO TCR-T cells was significantly enhanced by 2-PCPA treatment (
To determine whether 2-PCPA treatment was also effective on CAR-T cells as well as TCR-T cells, 2-PCPA treatment was applied when generating CAR-T cells. Activated T cells were transduced with CD19-specific chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) possessing CD28 co-stimulatory domain virus packaged by PG13 clone. Memory phenotype analysis showed that 2-PCPA treatment similarly increased the frequencies of less-differentiated memory T cells subsets (
b) DISCUSSION
The findings presented here identify a distinct pattern of T-cell reactivity against mutation-derived neoantigen; that is, a dominant neoantigen was recognized by the majority of tumor-reactive CD4+ or CD8+ T cells, while several other neoantigens were infrequently recognized by T cells. Interestingly, in the case of patient #135 it was shown that large majority of the tumor-reactive CD4+ or CD8+ TIL population/T-cell clones recognized neoantigens derived from somatic missense mutations respectively which was demonstrated via FACS and TCR sequencing analysis. Importantly, dominant neoantigen-specific T cells show better recognition and killing ability of single tumor cell clones, compared with subdominant/cryptic neoantigen-specific T-cell clones, implying that dominant neoantigen-specific T cells can play a critical role in tumor regression in checkpoint immunotherapy. Although two tumor-reactive CD4+ T-cell clones did not recognize mutation-derived neoantigens, they did respond to neoepitopes derived from the gene product of the 3′UTR region of ADIPOR2 mRNA or translated from an alternative ORF of the LAGE1b gene. Thus, gene products derived from aberrant translation of an mRNA can serve as neoantigens in cancer cells. By contrast, it was found that all tumor-reactive CD8+ T-cell clones recognized neoantigens derived from somatic missense mutations. Further investigation of neoantigens in another melanoma patient (patient #136) revealed the similar pattern of neoantigen recognition as seen with melanoma patient #135, indicating that although neoantigens capable of eliciting a specific T-cell response can be different among cancer patients, the regulation and control of neoantigen-specific response and recognition pattern appear consistent among patients within the same type of cancer.
Immunodominant and cryptic antigens have been reported in autoimmunity and infectious diseases, the study indicates that similar mechanisms can operate in response to cancer neoantigens. In this study, tumor clones growing from single cells were generated and checked the specific neoantigen presentation on tumor clones by recognition of T-cell clones. The data confirms that the presentation level of neoantigens varies in one tumor tissue and there are normally a few neoantigens presented by most of tumor cells, inducing the expansion of their specific T cells to the largest population in primary tumor-reactive T cells. These dominant neoantigens are ideal targets for T-cell based immunotherapy and contribute more in tumor suppression and elimination rather than those subdominant neoantigens, which has been demonstrated by the in vitro and in vivo study.
A single TCR has been reported to recognize multiple antigens in infectious and autoimmune diseases, but it has not demonstrated that a single TCR can recognize dual cancer neoantigens. By taking advantage of tumor-reactive single T-cell clones, provided herein is clear evidence that a single TCR can recognize two neoantigens presented by the same MHC II molecules, without amino acid sequence similarity. Surprisingly, a single TCR from 135-C76 T cells recognized the PCDHB16 neoantigen presented by HLA-DR4 molecules when transduced into CD4+ T cells, while the same TCR responded only to the RPN2 neoantigens presented by HLA-A1 molecules when expressed on CD8+ T cells. Hence, the use of TCRs with dual neoantigen specificity can enhance the potency of T cells used in TCR-based cancer immunotherapy.
Fresh tumor tissues were obtained from melanoma patients (#135 and #136) under an approved Institutional Review Board (IRB) protocol of Houston Methodist. Both patients were HLA typed (#135: HLA-A1, B8, C7, DR3, DR4, DP4; #136: HLA-A1, B8, C7, DR1, DR11, DP4).
(2) Primary and Cell Lines
All cells are grown at 37° C. with 5% CO2 unless otherwise stated. Patients' melanoma cell lines (135 mel and 136 mel) were generated and expanded in RPMI 1640 medium (Fisher scientific) with 10% (v/v) fetal bovine serum (Valley Biomedical Inc.) supplemented with 1% (v/v) penicillin-streptomycin (Thermo Fisher Scientific).
All types of human T-cell containing cells, including peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMCs), tumor-infiltrated lymphocytes (135TIL and 136TIL), T-cell clones etc. were established and maintained in T-cell culture medium (TCM) containing RPMI 1640 medium with 10% (v/v) human AB serum (Corning) supplemented with 1% (v/v) HEPES (Thermo Fisher Scientific), 1% (v/v) GlutaMAX (Thermo Fisher Scientific) and 0.1% (v/v) 2-mercaptoethanol (Thermo Fisher Scientific)) supplemented with recombinant human interleukin-2 (IL-2, 300 IU/ml) (Peprotech).
Epstein-Barr virus-transformed B (EBV-B) cells derived from patient #135 were cultured in RPMI 1640 medium with 10% (v/v) fetal bovine serum supplemented with 1% (v/v) penicillin-streptomycin.
Fibroblasts derived from patient #136 were cultured in Dulbecco's Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM) (Fisher Scientific) with 10% (v/v) fetal bovine serum (FBS) containing 1% penicillin-streptomycin.
HEK293-based antigen presenting cells (APCs), including 293IMDR3/DP4, 293IMDR4/DP4, 293IMDR1/DP4, 293IMDR11/DP4 were generated, and maintained in Dulbecco's DMEM with 10% (v/v) FBS containing 1% (v/v) penicillin-streptomycin. HEK293T cells, 239T-HLA-A1 and 293T-HLA-B8 cells were maintained in DMEM with 10% (v/v) fetal bovine serum containing 1% (v/v) penicillin-streptomycin.
Cos-7 cells were cultured in DMEM with 10% (v/v) fetal bovine serum containing 1% (v/v) penicillin-streptomycin.
Phoenix-AMPHO cells were cultured in DMEM with 10% (v/v) fetal bovine serum containing 1% (v/v) penicillin-streptomycin.
(3) T-Cell Cloning and T-Cell Expansion
T-cell cloning and expansion were performed. Briefly, T-cell clones from 135TILs were generated by a limited dilution (0.3 cell/well) in 96-well plates. Allogeneic PBMCs from normal donors were irradiated (60 Gy) and then seeded as feeder cells (7×104/well) in TCM containing 35 ng/ml OKT3 (anti-hCD3 antibody) (R&D Systems) and 35 ng/ml anti-hCD28 antibody (R&D Systems). On day 1, recombinant IL-2 was added to the final concentration of 300 IU/ml. On day 5, half of the culture medium was replaced with fresh TCM containing recombinant IL-2, and then the medium was changed every other day or when the medium color turned yellow. On day 14, T-cell clones were harvested, counted, tested for tumor reactivity. Tumor reactive T-cell clones were further expanded.
For T-cell expansion, 2.5×105 T cells were transferred into 25 ml flasks with 20 ml of TCM. 2×107 irradiated PBMCs (60 Gy) and 5×106 irradiated EBV-B cells (210 Gy) were added as feeder cells. OKT3 and anti-hCD28 antibody were added to the final concentration of 35 ng/ml. On day 1, recombinant interleukin-2 was added to the final concentration of 300 IU/ml. Culture medium was changed, as described above, starting on day 5. On day 14, expanded T cells were harvested, counted, and restored in liquid nitrogen until use.
(4) T-Cell Reactivity Assay 96-well tissue culture plates were coated with phosphate-buffered saline (PBS, GenDEPOT) containing 50 μg/ml poly-L-lysine (Millipore Sigma) at 37° C. 10 min later, the plates were rinsed twice with PBS. Tumor cells or 293-APCs were seeded at 5×104/well in the 96-well plate and cultured at 37° C., 5% CO2 for at least 4 h. For plasmid transfection, 250 ng of plasmid DNA were transfected into 293-APCs per well with 0.5 μl of Lipofectamine 2000 (Thermo Fisher Scientific) according to the manufacturer's instructions and incubated at 37° C., in 5% CO2 overnight. For peptide presentation, synthesized peptides (GeneScript) were added to each well at different final concentrations from 102 to 10−4 μM and incubated at 37° C., 5% CO2. The cells transfected with plasmids or pulsed with peptides were washed with TCM twice, and then cocultured with T cells (1×105/well). After overnight culture, 50 μl of supernatant was collected for measuring cytokine release with an ELISA assay.
96-well microplate (Greiner Bio-one) was coated with 50 μl of PBS containing anti-human IFN-γ (Thermo Fisher Scientific, primary antibody, 1 μg/ml) per well and incubated at 4° C. overnight. After three washes with PBS, each well was blocked by 200 μl of 1% (w/v) bovine serum albumin (BSA) in PBS and incubated at room temperature for at least 1 h. After three washes with PBS, 50 μl of culture supernatant or human IFN-γ standard (Peprotech) was added to each well at different concentrations in PBS and incubated at room temperature for 1 h. After three washes, 50 μl of biotin-labeled anti-human IFN-γ antibody (Thermo Fisher Scientific, secondary antibody, 1:1000 dilution) in 2% (v/v) FBS-containing PBS buffer was added to each well, and then incubated at room temperature for 1 h. The 96-well plate was washed six times with PBS containing 1% (v/v) Tween-20. 50 μl of 1:5000 diluted poly-HRP Streptavidin (Thermo Fisher Scientific) in PBS containing 1% (w/v) BSA was then added per well, and incubated in the dark at room temperature for 30 min. After six washes with PBS containing 1% (v/v) Tween-20, 100 μl of 3,3′,5,5′-tetramethylbenzidine substrate solution (TMB, Millipore Sigma) was added per well and incubated at room temperature for 10 min. The color reaction was terminated by adding 50 μl of 2.5 M H2504 The plate was read at OD450 nm. The concentration of IFN-γ was calculated by standard reading.
(5) Whole-Exome Sequencing of Tumor and Control Cells
Whole-exome sequencing was performed by a standard protocol. Briefly, genomic DNA from 135 mel and 135TILs were extracted with the Quick-DNA™ Miniprep Kit (Zymo Research). DNA library construction, exome capture, and sequencing were performed by the standard procedure of Illumina HiSeq 3000. The average reads were around 150× of the coverage on each base. Over 8 billion bases of sequence data were obtained from each sequenced sample. Output from Illumina was processed to yield BAM files, which contained aligned reads to the NCBI Human Reference Genome Build hg19 with well-calibrated quality scores. Somatic mutations were detected referred to previous reports and determined after filtering with the following parameters: filtering out variants in TIL sequencing; read depth >10; 1000 human genome frequency <0.01; missense mutation. Finally, somatic mutations were identified for the tandem minigene construction.
The tandem minigene construct was designed to encode 10 mutations-containing peptides with 12 amino acids flanked on both sides. The codons for double-strained nucleotide synthesis were optimized to avoid EcoRI and XhoI sites for cloning. The synthesized tandem minigenes (Integrated DNA Technologies) were then cloned into pTSX expression vector with in-frame fusion with the Ii80 open reading frame.
The screening of antigen-specific T cells against TMGs were performed as described in T-cell reactivity assay above. Briefly, TMGs were transfected with Lipofectamine 2000 in the artificial APCs according to the patient's HLA typing respectively. The transfected cells were cocultured with tumor-reactive T cells overnight and the IFN-γ release in the supernatant in each well was determined by ELISA on the second day.
In vitro transcription (IVT) of TMGs was performed with a standard protocol of HiScribe™ T7 ARCA mRNA Kit (New England Biolabs). Briefly, each TMG construct was linearized by cutting of XhoI (New England Biolabs) and gel-purified with DNA Recovery Kit (Zymo Research). The linearized DNA (1 μg) were used as template for RNA synthesis respectively and mixed with T7 RNA polymerase and reaction buffer in a 20 μl mixture as the kit instruction. The reaction was incubated at 37° C. for at least 30 min. Then the DNA templates were removed by adding 2 μl of DNase I and incubating at 37° C. for 15 min. Next the poly (A) tailing reaction (50 μl) was completed by mixing the IVT reaction with Poly(A) polymerase and reaction buffer as the kit instruction and incubating at 37° C. for 30 min.
Each 5′-capped and 3′-tailed WT-RNAs were purified by adding 1/2 volume of LiCl to the reaction as the kit instruction. After the incubation at −20° C. for 30 min, the RNAs were spun down by at 4° C. for 15 min at top speed and then the pellets were washed with 500 μl of cold 70% ethanol and air-dried. The pellets were finally resuspended and dissolved in suitable RNA storage solution.
The electroporation was performed as with a modified protocol of Amaxa® Cell Line Nucleofector® Kit V (Lonza). Briefly 1×105 EBV-B cells were spun down and resuspended in 50 μl of electroporation solution (Nucleofector® Solution:Supplement=9:2) and transferred into a kit-attached 100 μl cuvette immediately. 500 ng of IVT-RNA of TMGs were added to the cuvette respectively. The electroporation was completed by placing the cuvette in the Nucleofector™ 2b device and running a pre-set program (T-020).
The electroporated EBV-B cells were cultured in grow medium at 37° C. overnight and then cocultured with tumor-reactive T cells as described above. The IFN-γ release in the supernatant in each well was determined by ELISA on the second day.
For cDNA library construction and screening, total RNAs of 135 mel tumor cells were extracted with TRIzol reagent (Thermo Fisher Scientific) according to the manufacturer's instructions. mRNA was further purified from total RNAs, and converted into cDNA using a cDNA construction kit (Thermo Fisher Scientific) with an oligo-dT primer. After ligation with adaptors, cDNAs were cloned into a pTSX vector containing an Ii80 fragment upstream of the cloning sites, and then transformed into Stbl3™ Escherichia coli bacteria (Thermo Fisher Scientific). The cDNA bacterial library was divided into pools with each consisted of approximately 100 cDNA clones. Each plasmid pool was isolated from bacteria and transfected into 293-based APCs per well with 0.5 μl of Lipofectamine 2000 and incubated at 37° C., 5% CO2 overnight. After gentle washes, transfected cells were cocultured with T-cell clone (1×105/well) overnight. The positive pools were identified based on cytokine release from T cells by ELISA. Bacterial colonies transformed with the positive pool plasmid DNA were picked and prepared for DNA isolation. Several hundreds of individual colonies were repeated for screening with T cells. The positive clones were sequenced to identify target antigens recognized by T cells.
T cells were stimulated by various in vitro methods, such as tumor cells, peptides or DNA encoding neoantigens, etc. and induced to release cytokines. Stimulated T cells were resuspended in 100 μl of Cytofix/Cytoperm solution (BD Biosciences) per well for microwell plates (or 250 μl for tubes) and incubated for 20 min at 4° C. for cell fixation. Fixed cells were permeabilized by washing twice in 1× Perm/Wash buffer (BD Biosciences). Then the fixed/permeabilized cells were thoroughly resuspended in 50 μl of 1× Perm/Wash buffer containing 1 μl of phycoerythrin (PE)-conjugated IFN-γ antibody (Thermo Fisher Scientific) and incubate at 4° C. for 30 min in the dark. After that the cells were washed twice with 1× Perm/Wash buffer and ready for flow cytometric analysis.
Cytokine Secretion Assay-Detection Kit (MACS Miltenyi Biotec) was used in cell-surface IFN-γ staining based on a commercial protocol. Briefly 1×106 T cells were washed with growth medium and spun down at 300×g for 10 min and then resuspended in 100 μl of grow medium containing 5% human serum. Washed cells were transferred in one well of a 96-well plate and added with antigenic peptides to the concentration of 1-10m/ml and incubated for 3-6 h at 37° C. in 5% CO2. After in vitro stimulation of T cells, they were transferred to 15 ml closable tube and washed with 1 ml of cold buffer (cold PBS containing 2% FBS (v/v) and 5 mM EDTA) and spun down. The cell pellets were resuspended in 90 μl of cold growth medium and added with 10 μl of IFN-γ Catch Reagent and incubated for 5 min on ice. After that, 1 ml of warm growth medium (37° C.) was added in the tube and the cells were incubated in closed tube for 45 min at 37° C. under slow continuous rotation. The tube was transferred on ice after incubation and the cells were washed with cold buffer and spun down. The cell pellets were resuspended in 90 μl of cold buffer and then added with 10 μl of IFN-γ Detection Antibody and incubated for 10 min on ice. Finally cells were washed with cold buffer and ready for flow cytometric analysis.
135 mel tumor cells were suspended in 1× Keratinocyte-SFM and supplements (Thermo Fisher Scientific) with additional 10% (v/v) fetal bovine serum and 1% (v/v) penicillin-streptomycin at the density of 1.5 cell/ml after trypsinization, then 200 μl of mixture was added per well to 96-well plates and incubated at 37° C., 5% CO2. On day 5, wells containing a single colony were marked after observation under the microscope. On day 10, the medium was changed with fresh culture medium. The plates were incubated until day 20. The tumor clones in marked wells were trypsinized, and then expanded in larger flasks separately.
CytoTox 96® Non-Radioactive Cytotoxicity Assay Kit (Promega) was applied to measure T cell —tumor cytotoxicity. Briefly, T cells (effectors) and tumor cells (targets) were mixed in TCM at the E/T ratio from 2:1 to 20:1, then cocultured at 100 μl/well in a 96-well plate at 37° C., 5% CO2 for at least 4 h. After the incubation, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) concentration in the supernatant of each well was measured with the Kit following the manufacturer's instructions and the cytotoxicity percentage was calculated.
NSG mice (female) were 6-8 weeks of age, which were obtained from Jackson Laboratories. All NSG mice-related experiments were performed in animal housing facilities under specific pathogen-free conditions at Houston Methodist. All animal studies were performed as instructed by the NIH guidelines and approved by the Animal Care and Use Committee of Houston Methodist.
Subcutaneous injection of 135 mel tumor lines in NSG mice was performed to construct an animal model for adoptive T cell-based therapy (4 mice in each group). Briefly, 3×106 135 mel cells were injected on day 0 per mouse. On day 15, different neoantigen-specific T cell clones were intravenously injected at 107 T cells per mouse, followed by the intraperitoneal injection of 5×104 unit of interleukin-2 per mouse on day 15, 16 and 17. The serum level of IFN-γ in each tumor-bearing mouse was collected on day 19 and measured via ELISA. The growth of 135 mel in each mouse was tracked until day 40.
The TCR β CDR3 analysis were referred to a previous description (Robins et al., 2009). Neoantigen-specific T cells were isolated after the flow cytometric sorting of peptide-stimulated TIL bulk by live-cell IFN-γ staining. Genomic DNAs were isolated from sorted T cells with Quick-DNA™ Miniprep Kit (Zymo Research) according to a commercial protocol. The isolated genomic DNAs were used as templates for PCR amplification of rearranged TCR β CDR3 in mature T cells. A 50 μl PCR mixture was set up with 16 ng/μl genomic DNA templates, 1 μM of forward BV primer sets and 1 μM of reverse BJ primer sets (Table 5), 10× reaction buffer and 0.2 μl of AccuPrime Taq DNA Polymerase HF (Thermo Fisher Scientific). The PCR was performed for 35 cycles (95° C. for 30 s, 59° C. for 30 s and 68° C. for 1 min). The PCR amplicons were gel-purified by DNA Recovery Kit (Zymo Research) and sent for amplicon next-generation sequencing (Genewiz). The sequencing result was analyzed via a laboratory pipeline for data filtering and TCR repertoire alignment.
TCRα/β chain variable regions (CDR3) were amplified from a single T cell by three rounds of nested PCR. The first one-step RT-PCR was performed with the OneStep RT-PCR kit (Qiagen) in a 25 μl reaction and the following primers (Table 7): mixα1 (38 primers mixed, 10 μM each) and pCal (TCRα), mixβ1 (36 primers mixed, 10 μM each) and pCβ1 (TCRβ). 2 μl of PBS containing at least one T cell was added as the DNA template. The one-step RT-PCR was performed by reverse transcription (50° C., 30 min) followed by PCR for 25 cycles (94° C. for 30 s, 62° C. for 1 min, and 72° C. for 1 min), according to the manufacturer's instructions. The second and third PCR reactions were performed with KOD Hot Start DNA polymerase (Millipore Sigma) following the manufacturer's instructions. One μl of the first-round PCR product was added as a template for the second-round PCR in a 25 μl reaction. The second-round PCR was performed with the following primers (Table 7): mixα2 (36 primers mixed, 10 μM each) and pCα2 (TCRα), mixβ2 (36 primers mixed, 10 μM each) and pCβ2 (TCRβ) for 25 cycles (94° C. for 30 s, 64° C. for 1 min, and 70° C. for 1 min). One μl of the second-round PCR product was added as a template for the third-round PCR in a 25 μl reaction. The third-round PCR was performed with the following primers (Table 7): pF3 and pCα3 (TCRα), pF3 and pCβ3 (TCRβ), for 35 cycles (94° C. for 30 s, 64° C. for 1 min, and 70° C. for 1 min). The final PCR amplicons were gel-purified (Zymo Research) and sequenced (Genewiz). The genotypes of TCRs were determined by search with the online tools V-QUEST (IMGT) and Igblast (NCBI).
Once TCRα/β chain variable regions were determined, primers specific for leader sequence and constant region were used to amplify full-length TCRα/β chains. The PCR to amplify the intact TCRα- or β-chain and the following overlap PCR were performed with KOD Hot Start DNA polymerase (Millipore Sigma) according to the manufacturer's instructions. One μl of cDNA was added as a template in a 25 μl reaction together with the primers: pLα-P2A (based on TCR genotype), pRCα for amplifying full-length a chain or pLβ (based on TCR genotype), and pRCβ-P2A for amplifying full-length β chain. The PCR was performed for 20 cycles (94° C. for 30s, 64° C. for 1 min, 70° C. for 1 min). 2 μl of TCRα and 2 μl of TCRβ chain PCR products were mixed in 25 μl of overlap PCR reaction. The primers pLβ and pRCα were also added. The overlap PCR was performed for 30 cycles (94° C. for 30 s, 60° C. for 1 min, and 70° C. for 90s). The overlap PCR products (˜1.5 kb) were gel-purified with DNA Recovery Kit (Zymo Research) and cloned into pMSGV vector with NEBuilder® HiFi DNA Assembly Master Mix (New England Biolabs).
The pMSGV DNA encoding full-length TCR was transfected into Phoenix-Ampho cells (ATCC) to produce retroviruses. Briefly, 6-well tissue culture plate was coated with Poly-L-lysine (50 μg/ml in PBS) for 10 min at 37° C. and rinsed with PBS once. Phoenix-Ampho cells were seeded onto the coated plate at 1.5×106 per well and cultured in DMEM with 10% (v/v) fetal bovine serum containing 1% penicillin-streptomycin at 37° C., 5% CO2. Four h later, 4 μg of pMSGV plasmids was transfected into each well with 10 μl of Lipofectamine 2000. The culture medium was changed 6 h after the transfection and the retroviral supernatant was collected at 48 or 60 h after the transfection.
For preparation of activated naïve T cells, 24-well tissue culture plates were coated with 1 ml of PBS containing 0.5 μg/ml OKT3 per well and incubated at 4° C. overnight. After the plate was rinsed with PBS once, PBMCs from normal donors or bead-purified T cells were added in (1.0×106/well) and cultured in TCM containing 300 IU/ml IL-2 at 37° C., 5% CO2 for 48 h. The OKT3-stimulated T cells were ready for transduction after washed twice with TCM. 230. For retroviral transduction of activated T cells, 24-well non-tissue culture plates (Corning) were coated with 0.5 ml of human recombinant RetroNectin per well (Takara, 10m/ml in PBS) 1 day prior to the transduction and incubated at 4° C. overnight. After RetroNectin was removed, the plate was blocked with 2% (w/v) BSA in PBS at room temperature for 30 min. The plate was then washed twice with PBS containing 2.5% (v/v) HEPES. Retroviral supernatant of Phoenix-Ampho cells was added to the RetroNectin-coated plates (2.5 ml per well). The plate was centrifuged at 2000×g, 32° C. for 2 h. After the viral supernatant was discarded, OKT3-stimulated T cells were added to the plate (5×105/well) and cultured in TCM containing 150 IU/ml IL-2 at 37° C., 5% CO2 overnight. A second round of transduction was performed with fresh retroviral supernatant and RetroNectin-coated plates, as described above. The transduced T cells were ready to assay with tumor cells or 293APCs 72 h after transduction.
Comparisons between groups were calculated by Student's t-test using GraphPad Prism (GraphPad Software). P<0.05 was considered as statistically significant.
Sharma, P., and Allison, J. P. (2015). Immune checkpoint targeting in cancer therapy: toward combination strategies with curative potential. Cell 161, 205-214.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/662,495, filed on Apr. 25, 2018, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/US19/29107 | 4/25/2019 | WO |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62662495 | Apr 2018 | US |
