Integrative Development of a TLR8 Agonist for Ovarian Cancer Chemoimmunotherapy.
Academic Article
Overview
abstract
-
Purpose: Immunotherapy is an emerging paradigm for the treatment of cancer, but the potential efficacy of many drugs cannot be sufficiently tested in the mouse. We sought to develop a rational combination of motolimod-a novel Toll-like receptor 8 (TLR8) agonist that stimulates robust innate immune responses in humans but diminished responses in mice-with pegylated liposomal doxorubicin (PLD), a chemotherapeutic that induces immunogenic cell death.Experimental Design: We followed an integrative pharmacologic approach including healthy human volunteers, non-human primates, NSG-HIS ("humanized immune system") mice reconstituted with human CD34+ cells, and patients with cancer to test the effects of motolimod and to assess the combination of motolimod with PLD for the treatment of ovarian cancer.Results: The pharmacodynamic effects of motolimod monotherapy in NSG-HIS mice closely mimicked those in non-human primates and healthy human subjects, whereas the effects of the motolimod/PLD combination in tumor-bearing NSG-HIS mice closely mimicked those in patients with ovarian cancer treated in a phase Ib trial (NCT01294293). The NSG-HIS mouse helped elucidate the mechanism of action of the combination and revealed a positive interaction between the two drugs in vivo The combination produced no dose-limiting toxicities in patients with ovarian cancer. Two subjects (15%) had complete responses and 7 subjects (53%) had disease stabilization. A phase II study was consequently initiated.Conclusions: These results are the first to demonstrate the value of pharmacologic approaches integrating the NSG-HIS mouse, non-human primates, and patients with cancer for the development of novel immunomodulatory anticancer agents with human specificity. Clin Cancer Res; 23(8); 1955-66. ©2016 AACR.
publication date
published in
Research
keywords
-
Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols
-
Benzazepines
-
Immunotherapy
-
Ovarian Neoplasms
-
Toll-Like Receptor 8
Identity
PubMed Central ID
Scopus Document Identifier
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
-
10.1158/1078-0432.CCR-16-1453
PubMed ID
Additional Document Info
has global citation frequency
volume
issue