Editorial
Glenn Dranoff
Cancer Immunol Res July 1 2014 2 (7) 591-591; DOI:10.1158/2326-6066.CIR-14-0097
Haile and colleagues report that CD80-Fc effectively maintained PD-1+ T-cell activation and IFNγ production by blocking PD-L1-mediated immune suppression and costimulating CD28, and suggest the development of CD80-Fc as a therapeutic agent.
Lutz and colleagues show that an allogeneic vaccine given with or without low-dose cyclophosphamide converted pancreatic cancer into an immunogenic cancer with infiltrating effector lymphocytes and formation of tertiary lymphoid aggregates that are regulatory structures of adaptive immunity.
Hodi and colleagues report the safety and efficacy of targeting angiogenesis and CTLA-4 in a phase I trial of 46 patients with metastatic melanoma, which revealed the influence of VEGF-A blockade on inflammation, lymphocyte trafficking, and immune regulation, and their synergistic therapeutic effects.
Cooper, Juneja, Sage, and colleagues show that combining BRAF and PD-1/PD-L1 blockade slowed tumor growth and prolonged survival in a melanoma mouse model, with increased number and activity of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes similar to that in a human melanoma patient treated with this regimen.
Elpek and colleagues analyzed the developmental and transcriptomic signatures of infiltrating myeloid cells in three mouse tumor models and report that tumor-associated macrophages and neutrophils exhibited different frequencies, gene expression profiles, and functions dependent on cancer types but not locations.
Weide and colleagues show that intralesional therapy using the immunocytokine L19–IL2 elicited a high rate of clinical and systemic immune responses in patients with stage III melanoma and report their observation of favorable distant metastasis-free and overall survival in these patients after treatment.
Savino, Caronni, and colleagues report that D6 expression was inversely correlated with increased tumor-associated M2-macrophages and aggressiveness in ERK pathway–activated Kaposi sarcoma (KS), and suggest targeting of CCR2 and the ERK pathway as a therapeutic option for patients with KS.
Shen, Cote, and colleagues developed a quantitative RNA-based PD-L1 assay and report PD-L1 expression in 84% of human osteosarcomas, of which 24% were at high levels and correlated with TILs, indicating that this subset of patients may benefit from anti-PD-L1 immunotherapy.