Adoptive T cell therapy targeting an inducible and broadly shared product of aberrant mRNA translation
Champagne J, Nielsen MM, Feng X, Montenegro Navarro J, Pataskar A, Voogd R, Giebel L, Nagel R, Berenst N, Fumagalli A, Kochavi A, Lovecchio D, Valcanover L, Malka Y, Yang W, Laos M, Li Y, Proost N, van de Ven M, van Tellingen O, Bleijerveld OB, Haane
Prolonged exposure to interferon-gamma (IFNγ) and the associated increased expression of the enzyme indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1) create an intracellular shortage of tryptophan in the cancer cells, which stimulates ribosomal frameshifting and tryptophan to phenylalanine (W>F) codon reassignments during protein synthesis. Here, we investigated whether such neoepitopes can be useful targets of adoptive T cell therapy. Immunopeptidomic analyses uncovered hundreds of W>F neoepitopes mainly presented by the HLA-A∗24:02 allele. We identified a T cell receptor (TCRTMBIM6W>F.1) possessing high affinity and specificity toward TMBIM6W>F/HLA-A∗24:02, the inducible W>F neoepitope with the broadest expression across cancer cell lines. TCRTMBIM6W>F.1 T cells are activated by tryptophan-depleted cancer cells but not by non-cancer cells. Finally, we provide in vivo proof of concept for clinical application, whereby TCRMART1 T cells promote cancer cell killing by TCRTMBIM6W>F.1 T cells through the generation of W>F neoepitopes. Thus, neoepitopes arising from W>F substitution present shared and highly expressed immunogenic targets with the potential to overcome current limitations in adoptive T cell therapy.
Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Immunity, 2025-01-17