Scientific Publications by FDA Staff

Cancer Immunol Res 2016 Aug;4(8):669-78

Durable complete response from metastatic melanoma after transfer of autologous T cells recognizing 10 mutated tumor antigens.

Prickett TD, Crystal JS, Cohen CJ, Pasetto A, Parkhurst MR, Gartner JJ, Yao X, Wang R, Gros A, Li YF, El-Gamil M, Trebska-McGowan K, Rosenberg SA, Robbins PF

Immunotherapy treatment of patients with metastatic cancer has assumed a prominent role in the clinic. Durable complete response rates of 20-25% are achieved in patients with metastatic melanoma following adoptive cell transfer of T cells derived from metastatic lesions, responses that appear in some patients to be mediated by T cells that predominantly recognize mutated antigens. Here we provide a detailed analysis of the reactivity of T cells administered to a patient with metastatic melanoma who exhibited a complete response for over 3 years after treatment. Over 4,000 nonsynonymous somatic mutations were identified by whole-exome sequence analysis of the patient's autologous normal and tumor cell DNA. Autologous B cells transfected with 720 mutated minigenes corresponding to the most highly expressed tumor cell transcripts were then analyzed for their ability to stimulate the administered T cells. Autologous TIL recognized 10 distinct mutated gene products, but not the corresponding wild type products, each of which was recognized in the context of one of three different MHC class I restriction elements expressed by the patient. Detailed clonal analysis revealed that nine of the top 20 most prevalent clones present in the infused T cells, comprising approximately 24% of the total cells, recognized mutated antigens. Thus, we have identified and enriched mutation-reactive T cells and suggest that such analyses may lead to the development of more effective therapies for the treatment of patients with metastatic cancer.