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Transforming Growth Factor-β Receptor Blockade Augments the Effectiveness of Adoptive T-Cell Therapy of Established Solid Cancers

Authors' Affiliations: ¹ Thoracic Oncology Research Laboratory and ² Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, University of Pennsylvania; ³ Wistar Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and ⁴ Oncology Cell Signaling, Biogen Idec, Cambridge Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Requests for reprints: Steven Albelda, 1016B ARC, University of Pennsylvania, 3615 Civic Center Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA 19104-4318. Phone: 215-573-9969; Fax: 215-573-4469; E-mail: albelda{at}mail.med.upenn.edu.

Purpose: Adoptive cellular immunotherapy is a promising approach to eradicate established tumors. However, a significant hurdle in the success of cellular immunotherapy involves recently identified mechanisms of immune suppression on cytotoxic T cells at the effector phase. Transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) is one of the most important of these immunosuppressive factors because it affects both T-cell and macrophage functions. We thus hypothesized that systemic blockade of TGF-β signaling combined with adoptive T-cell transfer would enhance the effectiveness of the therapy.

Experimental Design: Flank tumors were generated in mice using the chicken ovalbumin–expressing thymoma cell line, EG7. Splenocytes from transgenic OT-1 mice (whose CD8 T cells recognize an immunodominant peptide in chicken ovalbumin) were activated in vitro and adoptively transferred into mice bearing large tumors in the presence or absence of an orally available TGF-β receptor-I kinase blocker (SM16).

Results: We observed markedly smaller tumors in the group receiving the combination of SM16 chow and adoptive transfer. Additional investigation revealed that TGF-β receptor blockade increased the persistence of adoptively transferred T cells in the spleen and lymph nodes, increased numbers of adoptively transferred T cells within tumors, increased activation of these infiltrating T cells, and altered the tumor microenvironment with a significant increase in tumor necrosis factor- and decrease in arginase mRNA expression.

Conclusions: We found that systemic blockade of TGF-β receptor activity augmented the antitumor activity of adoptively transferred T cells and may thus be a useful adjunct in future clinical trials.