TY  - JOUR
A1  - Wendlinger, Simone
A1  - Wohlfarth, Jonas
A1  - Kreft, Sophia
A1  - Siedel, Claudia
A1  - Kilian, Teresa
A1  - Dischinger, Ulrich
A1  - Heppt, Markus V.
A1  - Wistuba-Hamprecht, Kilian
A1  - Meier, Friedegund
A1  - Goebeler, Matthias
A1  - Schadendorf, Dirk
A1  - Gesierich, Anja
A1  - Kosnopfel, Corinna
A1  - Schilling, Bastian
T1  - Blood eosinophils are associated with efficacy of targeted therapy in patients with advanced melanoma
JF  - Cancers
N2  - Background: Eosinophils appear to contribute to the efficacy of immunotherapy and their frequency was suggested as a predictive biomarker. Whether this observation could be transferred to patients treated with targeted therapy remains unknown. Methods: Blood and serum samples of healthy controls and 216 patients with advanced melanoma were prospectively and retrospectively collected. Freshly isolated eosinophils were phenotypically characterized by flow cytometry and co-cultured in vitro with melanoma cells to assess cytotoxicity. Soluble serum markers and peripheral blood counts were used for correlative studies. Results: Eosinophil-mediated cytotoxicity towards melanoma cells, as well as phenotypic characteristics, were similar when comparing healthy donors and patients. However, high relative pre-treatment eosinophil counts were significantly associated with response to MAPKi (p = 0.013). Eosinophil-mediated cytotoxicity towards melanoma cells is dose-dependent and requires proximity of eosinophils and their target in vitro. Treatment with targeted therapy in the presence of eosinophils results in an additive tumoricidal effect. Additionally, melanoma cells affected eosinophil phenotype upon co-culture. Conclusion: High pre-treatment eosinophil counts in advanced melanoma patients were associated with a significantly improved response to MAPKi. Functionally, eosinophils show potent cytotoxicity towards melanoma cells, which can be reinforced by MAPKi. Further studies are needed to unravel the molecular mechanisms of our observations.
KW  - melanoma
KW  - eosinophils
KW  - biomarker
Y1  - 2022
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-275137
SN  - 2072-6694
VL  - 14
IS  - 9
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Danhof, Sophia
A1  - Rasche, Leo
A1  - Mottok, Anja
A1  - Steinmüller, Tabea
A1  - Zhou, Xiang
A1  - Schreder, Martin
A1  - Kilian, Teresa
A1  - Strifler, Susanne
A1  - Rosenwald, Andreas
A1  - Hudecek, Michael
A1  - Einsele, Hermann
A1  - Gerhard-Hartmann, Elena
T1  - Elotuzumab for the treatment of extramedullary myeloma: a retrospective analysis of clinical efficacy and SLAMF7 expression patterns
JF  - Annals of Hematology
N2  - Extramedullary disease (EMD) represents a high-risk state of multiple myeloma (MM) associated with poor prognosis. While most anti-myeloma therapeutics demonstrate limited efficacy in this setting, some studies exploring the utility of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-modified T cells reported promising results. We have recently designed SLAMF7-directed CAR T cells for the treatment of MM. SLAMF7 is a transmembrane receptor expressed on myeloma cells that plays a role in myeloma cell homing to the bone marrow. Currently, the only approved anti-SLAMF7 therapeutic is the monoclonal antibody elotuzumab, but its efficacy in EMD has not been investigated thoroughly. Thus, we retrospectively analyzed the efficacy of elotuzumab-based combination therapy in a cohort of 15 patients with EMD. Moreover, since the presence of the target antigen is an indispensable prerequisite for effective targeted therapy, we investigated the SLAMF7 expression on extramedullary located tumor cells before and after treatment. We observed limited efficacy of elotuzumab-based combination therapies, with an overall response rate of 40% and a progression-free and overall survival of 3.8 and 12.9 months, respectively. Before treatment initiation, all available EMD tissue specimens (n = 3) demonstrated a strong and consistent SLAMF7 surface expression by immunohistochemistry. Furthermore, to investigate a potential antigen reduction under therapeutic selection pressure, we analyzed samples of de novo EMD (n = 3) outgrown during elotuzumab treatment. Again, immunohistochemistry documented strong and consistent SLAMF7 expression in all samples. In aggregate, our data point towards a retained expression of SLAMF7 in EMD and encourage the development of more potent SLAMF7-directed immunotherapies, such as CAR T cells.
KW  - plasma cells
KW  - extramedullary disease
KW  - monoclonal antibody
KW  - CD319
KW  - CS1
KW  - antigen loss
Y1  - 2021
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-266468
SN  - 1432-0584
VL  - 100
IS  - 6
ER  -