Vaccination with vascular progenitor cells derived from induced pluripotent stem cells elicits antitumor immunity targeting vascular and tumor cells

Mannan-Decorated Lipid Calcium Phosphate Nanoparticle Vaccine Increased the Antitumor Immune Response by Modulating the Tumor Microenvironment

With the rapid development of tumor immunotherapy, nanoparticle vaccines have attracted much attention as potential therapeutic strategies. A systematic review and analysis must be carried out to investigate the effect of mannose modification on the immune response to nanoparticles in regulating the tumor microenvironment, as well as to explore its potential clinical application in tumor therapy. Despite the potential advantages of nanoparticle vaccines in immunotherapy, achieving an effective immune response in the tumor microenvironment remains a challenge. Tumor immune escape and the overexpression of immunosuppressive factors limit its clinical application. Therefore, our review explored how to intervene in the immunosuppressive mechanism in the tumor microenvironment through the use of mannan-decorated lipid calcium phosphate nanoparticle vaccines to improve the efficacy of immunotherapy in patients with tumors and to provide new ideas and strategies for the field of tumor therapy.

Immunotherapy in soft tissue and bone sarcoma: unraveling the barriers to effectiveness

Sarcomas are uncommon malignancies of mesenchymal origin that can arise throughout the human lifespan, at any part of the body. Surgery remains the optimal treatment modality whilst response to conventional treatments, such as chemotherapy and radiation, is minimal. Immunotherapy has emerged as a novel approach to treat different cancer types but efficacy in soft tissue sarcoma and bone sarcoma is limited to distinct subtypes. Growing evidence shows that cancer-stroma cell interactions and their microenvironment play a key role in the effectiveness of immunotherapy. However, the pathophysiological and immunological properties of the sarcoma tumor microenvironment in relation to immunotherapy advances, has not been broadly reviewed. Here, we provide an up-to-date overview of the different immunotherapy modalities as potential treatments for sarcoma, identify barriers posed by the sarcoma microenvironment to immunotherapy, highlight their relevance for impeding effectiveness, and suggest mechanisms to overcome these barriers.

Next-generation sequencing traces human induced pluripotent stem cell lines clonally generated from heterogeneous cancer tissue

AIM

To investigate genotype variation among induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) lines that were clonally generated from heterogeneous colon cancer tissues using next-generation sequencing.

METHODS

Human iPSC lines were clonally established by selecting independent single colonies expanded from heterogeneous primary cells of S-shaped colon cancer tissues by retroviral gene transfer (OCT3/4, SOX2, and KLF4). The ten iPSC lines, their starting cancer tissues, and the matched adjacent non-cancerous tissues were analyzed using next-generation sequencing and bioinformatics analysis using the human reference genome hg19. Non-synonymous single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) (missense, nonsense, and read-through) were identified within the target region of 612 genes related to cancer and the human kinome. All SNVs were annotated using dbSNP135, CCDS, RefSeq, GENCODE, and 1000 Genomes. The SNVs of the iPSC lines were compared with the genotypes of the cancerous and non-cancerous tissues. The putative genotypes were validated using allelic depth and genotype quality. For final confirmation, mutated genotypes were manually curated using the Integrative Genomics Viewer.

RESULTS

In eight of the ten iPSC lines, one or two non-synonymous SNVs in EIF2AK2, TTN, ULK4, TSSK1B, FLT4, STK19, STK31, TRRAP, WNK1, PLK1 or PIK3R5 were identified as novel SNVs and were not identical to the genotypes found in the cancer and non-cancerous tissues. This result suggests that the SNVs were de novo or pre-existing mutations that originated from minor populations, such as multifocal pre-cancer (stem) cells or pre-metastatic cancer cells from multiple, different clonal evolutions, present within the heterogeneous cancer tissue. The genotypes of all ten iPSC lines were different from the mutated ERBB2 and MKNK2 genotypes of the cancer tissues and were identical to those of the non-cancerous tissues and that found in the human reference genome hg19. Furthermore, two of the ten iPSC lines did not have any confirmed mutated genotypes, despite being derived from cancerous tissue. These results suggest that the traceability and preference of the starting single cells being derived from pre-cancer (stem) cells, stroma cells such as cancer-associated fibroblasts, and immune cells that co-existed in the tissues along with the mature cancer cells.

CONCLUSION

The genotypes of iPSC lines derived from heterogeneous cancer tissues can provide information on the type of starting cell that the iPSC line was generated from.

Immunotargeting of cancer stem cells

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) represent a distinctive population of tumour cells that control tumour initiation, progression, and maintenance. Their influence is great enough to risk the statement that successful therapeutic strategy must target CSCs in order to eradicate the disease. Because cancer stem cells are highly resistant to chemo- and radiotherapy, new tools to fight against cancer have to be developed. Expression of antigens such as ALDH, CD44, EpCAM, or CD133, which distinguish CSCs from normal cells, together with CSC immunogenicity and relatively low toxicity of immunotherapies, makes immune targeting of CSCs a promising approach for cancer treatment. This review will present immunotherapeutic approaches using dendritic cells, T cells, pluripotent stem cells, and monoclonal antibodies to target and eliminate CSCs.