Checkpoint blockade cancer immunotherapy targets tumour-specific mutant antigens

A carcinogen-induced mouse tumour model is used here to show that mutant tumour-specific antigens are targets for CD8 + T-cell responses, mediating tumour regression after checkpoint blockade immunotherapy, and that these antigens can be used effectively in therapeutic vaccines; this advance potentially opens the door to personalized cancer vaccines. Targetting tumour-specific mutant antigens In many individuals, immunosuppression is mediated by T-lymphocyte associated antigen-4 (CTLA-4) and programmed death-1 (PD-1), immunomodulatory receptors expressed on T cells. Matthew Gubin et al . use the MCA mouse sarcoma model to show that mutant tumour antigens serve as targets for CD8 + T-cell responses, mediating tumour regression after checkpoint blockade immunotherapy with anti-PD-1 and/or anti-CTLA-4. The authors demonstrate that these antigens can be used effectively in therapeutic vaccines, suggesting a possible route to personalized cancer vaccines. The immune system influences the fate of developing cancers by not only functioning as a tumour promoter that facilitates cellular transformation, promotes tumour growth and sculpts tumour cell immunogenicity 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , but also as an extrinsic tumour suppressor that either destroys developing tumours or restrains their expansion 1 , 2 , 7 . Yet, clinically apparent cancers still arise in immunocompetent individuals in part as a consequence of cancer-induced immunosuppression. In many individuals, immunosuppression is mediated by cytotoxic T-lymphocyte associated antigen-4 (CTLA-4) and programmed death-1 (PD-1), two immunomodulatory receptors expressed on T cells 8 , 9 . Monoclonal-antibody-based therapies targeting CTLA-4 and/or PD-1 (checkpoint blockade) have yielded significant clinical benefits—including durable responses—to patients with different malignancies 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 . However, little is known about the identity of the tumour antigens that function as the targets of T cells activated by checkpoint blockade immunotherapy and whether these antigens can be used to generate vaccines that are highly tumour-specific. Here we use genomics and bioinformatics approaches to identify tumour-specific mutant proteins as a major class of T-cell rejection antigens following anti-PD-1 and/or anti-CTLA-4 therapy of mice bearing progressively growing sarcomas, and we show that therapeutic synthetic long-peptide vaccines incorporating these mutant epitopes induce tumour rejection comparably to checkp