Idiotype/anti-idiotype antibodies: as a glorious savior in COVID-19 pandemics

The idiotype network is experimentally modified to provide protective immunity against various microbial pathogens. Both internal and non-internal image-idiotype antibodies can trigger specific immune responses to antigens. The current outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome 2 (SARS-2) has provided a great opportunity to take advantage of idiotype / anti-idiotype antibodies as a protective regimen when no approved vaccine is available on earth. The current review identifies successful applications of idiotype/ anti-idiotype antibodies in various viral diseases and highlights their importance in COVID-19 pandemics. In the absence of vaccines and targeted therapies, polyclonal idiotype/ anti-idiotype antibodies against the viral structure may be a potential approach to the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 patients.

Phase I study of an active immunotherapy for asymptomatic phase Lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma with DNA vaccines encoding antigen-chemokine fusion: study protocol

BACKGROUND

There is now a renewed interest in cancer vaccines. Patients responding to immune checkpoint blockade usually bear tumors that are heavily infiltrated by T cells and express a high load of neoantigens, indicating that the immune system is involved in the therapeutic effect of these agents; this finding strongly supports the use of cancer vaccine strategies. Lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma (LPL) is a low grade, incurable disease featuring an abnormal proliferation of Immunoglobulin (Ig)-producing malignant cells. Asymptomatic patients are currently managed by a "watchful waiting" approach, as available therapies provide no survival advantage if started before symptoms develop. Idiotypic determinants of a lymphoma surface Ig, formed by the interaction of the variable regions of heavy and light chains, can be used as a tumor-specific marker and effective vaccination using idiotypes was demonstrated in a positive controlled phase III trial.

METHODS

These variable region genes can be cloned and used as a DNA vaccine, a delivery system holding tremendous potential for streamlining vaccine production. To increase vaccination potency, we are targeting antigen-presenting cells (APCs) by fusing the antigen with a sequence encoding a chemokine (MIP-3α), which binds an endocytic surface receptor on APCs. Asymptomatic phase LPL is an excellent model to test our vaccine since patients have not received chemotherapeutics that interfere with innate immune function and have low tumor burden. We are evaluating the safety of this next-generation DNA vaccine in a first-in-human clinical trial currently enrolling asymptomatic LPL patients. To elucidate the mode of action of this vaccine, we will assess its ability to generate tumor-specific immune responses and examine changes in the immune profile of both the peripheral blood and bone marrow.

DISCUSSION

This vaccine could shift the current paradigm of clinical management for patients with asymptomatic LPL and inform development of other personalized approaches.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT01209871; registered on September 24, 2010.

Idiotypic Antifungal Vaccination: Immunoprotection by Antiidiotypic Antibiotic Antibodies

As implied by the idiotypic network theory, the interaction between the functional epitope of a microbicidal molecule (X) and its specific cell-wall receptor (RX) on sensitive microorganisms may be imaged by the bond between the idiotype (Id) of a neutralizing monoclonal antibody (anti-X Ab) and its anti-idiotype (anti-Id) X-like Ab (anti-anti-X Ab). Consequently, anti-X Ab Id may mimic RX acting as a vaccine (idiotypic vaccination) for the elicitation of protective anti-Id Abs with antibiotic activity (antibiobodies).

Challenges and opportunities for monoclonal antibody therapy in veterinary oncology

Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) have come to dominate the biologics market in human cancer therapy. Nevertheless, in veterinary medicine, very few clinical trials have been initiated using this form of therapy. Some of the advantages of mAb therapeutics over conventional drugs are high specificity, precise mode of action and long half-life, which favour infrequent dosing of the antibody. Further advancement in the field of biomedical sciences has led to the production of different forms of antibodies, such as single chain antibody fragment, Fab, bi-specific antibodies and drug conjugates for use in diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. This review describes the potential for mAbs in veterinary oncology in supporting both diagnosis and therapy of cancer. The technical and financial hurdles to facilitate clinical acceptance of mAbs are explored and insights into novel technologies and targets that could support more rapid clinical development are offered.

IL-15 enhances the antitumor effect of human antigen-specific CD8+ T cells by cellular senescence delay

Optimal expansion protocols for adoptive human T-cell therapy often include interleukin (IL)-15; however, the mechanism by which IL-15 improves the in vivo antitumor effect of T cells remains to be elucidated. Using human T cells generated from HLA-A2+ donors against novel T-cell epitopes derived from the human U266 myeloma cell line Ig light chain V-region (idiotype) as a model, we found that T cells cultured with IL-15 provided superior resistance to tumor growth in vivo, compared with IL-2, after adoptive transfer into immunodeficient hosts. This effect of IL-15 was associated with delayed/reversed senescence in tumor antigen-specific memory CD8⁺ T cells mediated through downregulation of P21^WAF1, P16^INK4a, and P53 expression. Compared to IL-2, IL-15 stimulation dramatically activated JAK3-STAT5 signaling and inhibited the expression of DNA damage genes. Thus, our study elucidates a new mechanism for IL-15 in the regulation of STAT signaling pathways and CD8⁺ T-cell senescence.

Idiotype vaccines for lymphoma: Potential factors predicting the induction of immune responses

Over the last two decades, lymphoma idiotype vaccines have been the first human cancer vaccines to show striking evidence of biological and clinical efficacy on the one hand, as well as clinical benefit on the other. More recently, however, three large-scale, independent, randomized clinical trials on idiotypic vaccination have failed to achieve their main clinical endpoints for reasons likely to depend more on flaws in each clinical trial’s study design than on each vaccination strategy per se. Independently of these considerations, a major hurdle for the development of this substantially innocuous and yet potentially very effective type of treatment has been the fact that, even to date, no factors ascertainable before vaccination have been prospectively singled out as predictors of subsequently vaccine-induced, idiotype-specific immune as well as clinical responses. The aim of this review article is precisely to analyze what has been and what could be done in this respect in order to give a greater chance of success to future trials aimed at regulatory approval of idiotype vaccines.