Abstract B110: Proinflammatory allogeneic dendritic cells promote activation of bystander immune cells and indirectly license antigen-specific T-cells

Autologous patient-derived dendritic cells (DCs) modified ex vivo to present tumor-associated antigens have frequently been utilized as cancer vaccines. However, apart from the stringent logistics in producing DCs on a patient basis, accumulating evidences indicate that such DCs are poor in migration and in fact do not directly interact with naive T-cells in vivo. Instead, it is the bystander host-DCs taking up material from apoptotic vaccine DCs and subsequently initiate antitumor T-cell responses. We examine the possibility of harnessing allogeneic pro-inflammatory DCs (alloDCs) as immune enhancers which may affect the activation of bystander immune cells and promote antigen-specific T-cell responses. We have verified the inflammatory state of DCs matured with a maturation cocktail in combination with an infection-enhanced adenovirus. Such proinflammatory alloDCs expressed co-stimulatory and activation molecules and secreted Th-1 type cytokines in vitro. T and NK cells up-regulated activation markers after co-culture with such alloDCs and created an immunostimulatory environment which was found to promote maturation of antigen-loaded DCs and the subsequent activation of antigen-specific T-cells by cross-presentation. Our findings were evaluated as a therapeutic strategy in murine models with success. We are proposing that vaccination with proinflammatory alloDCs in combination with the use of Ad5M as possible antigen delivery vehicle can be a cost-effective strategy to induce antitumor immune responses. Citation Format: Grammatiki Fotaki, Chuan Jin, Iliana Kyriaki Kerzeli, Mohanraj Ramachandran, Alex Karlsson-Parra, Di Yu, Magnus Essand. Proinflammatory allogeneic dendritic cells promote activation of bystander immune cells and indirectly license antigen-specific T-cells [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Fourth CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference: Translating Science into Survival; Sept 30-Oct 3, 2018; New York, NY. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Immunol Res 2019;7(2 Suppl):Abstract nr B110.