TY - JOUR A1 - Sonntag, Katja A1 - Hashimoto, Hisayoshi A1 - Eyrich, Matthias A1 - Menzel, Moritz A1 - Schubach, Max A1 - Döcker, Dennis A1 - Battke, Florian A1 - Courage, Carolina A1 - Lambertz, Helmut A1 - Handgretinger, Rupert A1 - Biskup, Saskia A1 - Schilbach, Karin T1 - Immune monitoring and TCR sequencing of CD4 T cells in a long term responsive patient with metastasized pancreatic ductal carcinoma treated with individualized, neoepitope-derived multipeptide vaccines: a case report JF - Journal of Translational Medicine N2 - Background Cancer vaccines can effectively establish clinically relevant tumor immunity. Novel sequencing approaches rapidly identify the mutational fingerprint of tumors, thus allowing to generate personalized tumor vaccines within a few weeks from diagnosis. Here, we report the case of a 62-year-old patient receiving a four-peptide-vaccine targeting the two sole mutations of his pancreatic tumor, identified via exome sequencing. Methods Vaccination started during chemotherapy in second complete remission and continued monthly thereafter. We tracked IFN-γ+ T cell responses against vaccine peptides in peripheral blood after 12, 17 and 34 vaccinations by analyzing T-cell receptor (TCR) repertoire diversity and epitope-binding regions of peptide-reactive T-cell lines and clones. By restricting analysis to sorted IFN-γ-producing T cells we could assure epitope-specificity, functionality, and TH1 polarization. Results A peptide-specific T-cell response against three of the four vaccine peptides could be detected sequentially. Molecular TCR analysis revealed a broad vaccine-reactive TCR repertoire with clones of discernible specificity. Four identical or convergent TCR sequences could be identified at more than one time-point, indicating timely persistence of vaccine-reactive T cells. One dominant TCR expressing a dual TCRVα chain could be found in three T-cell clones. The observed T-cell responses possibly contributed to clinical outcome: The patient is alive 6 years after initial diagnosis and in complete remission for 4 years now. Conclusions Therapeutic vaccination with a neoantigen-derived four-peptide vaccine resulted in a diverse and long-lasting immune response against these targets which was associated with prolonged clinical remission. These data warrant confirmation in a larger proof-of concept clinical trial. KW - pancreatic carcinoma KW - therapeutic vaccines KW - neoepitope-derived peptides KW - T-cell responses KW - CDR3 sequences Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-239276 VL - 16 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Salzmann-Manrique, Emilia A1 - Bremm, Melanie A1 - Huenecke, Sabine A1 - Stech, Milena A1 - Orth, Andreas A1 - Eyrich, Matthias A1 - Schulz, Ansgar A1 - Esser, Ruth A1 - Klingebiel, Thomas A1 - Bader, Peter A1 - Herrmann, Eva A1 - Koehl, Ulrike T1 - Joint Modeling of Immune Reconstitution Post Haploidentical Stem Cell Transplantation in Pediatric Patients With Acute Leukemia Comparing CD34(+)-Selected to CD3/CD19-Depleted Grafts in a Retrospective Multicenter Study JF - frontiers in Immunology N2 - Rapid immune reconstitution (IR) following stem cell transplantation (SCT) is essential for a favorable outcome. The optimization of graft composition should not only enable a sufficient IR but also improve graft vs. leukemia/tumor effects, overcome infectious complications and, finally, improve patient survival. Especially in haploidentical SCT, the optimization of graft composition is controversial. Therefore, we analyzed the influence of graft manipulation on IR in 40 patients with acute leukemia in remission. We examined the cell recovery post haploidentical SCT in patients receiving a CD34(+)-selected or CD3/CD19-depleted graft, considering the applied conditioning regimen. We used joint model analysis for overall survival (OS) and analyzed the dynamics of age-adjusted leukocytes; lymphocytes; monocytes; CD3(+), CD3(+) CD4(+), and CD3(+) CD8(+) T cells; natural killer (NK) cells; and B cells over the course of time after SCT. Lymphocytes, NK cells, and B cells expanded more rapidly after SCT with CD34(+)-selected grafts (P = 0.036, P = 0.002, and P < 0.001, respectively). Contrarily, CD3(+) CD4(+) helper T cells recovered delayer in the CD34 selected group (P = 0.026). Furthermore, reduced intensity conditioning facilitated faster immune recovery of lymphocytes and T cells and their subsets (P < 0.001). However, the immune recovery for NK cells and B cells was comparable for patients who received reduced-intensity or full preparative regimens. Dynamics of all cell types had a significant influence on OS, which did not differ between patients receiving CD34(+)-selected and those receiving CD3/CD19-depleted grafts. In conclusion, cell reconstitution dynamics showed complex diversity with regard to the graft manufacturing procedure and conditioning regimen. KW - immune reconstitution KW - allogeneic stem cell transplantation KW - CD34 selection KW - CD3/19 depletion KW - children Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-227302 VL - 9 ER -