Self-Adjuvanting Cancer Vaccines from Conjugation-Ready Lipid A Analogues and Synthetic Long Peptides.

Self-adjuvanting vaccines, wherein an antigenic peptide is covalently bound to an immunostimulating agent, have been shown to be promising tools for immunotherapy. Synthetic Toll-like receptor (TLR) ligands are ideal adjuvants for covalent linking to peptides or proteins. We here introduce a conjugation-ready TLR4 ligand, CRX-527, a potent powerful lipid A analogue, in the generation of novel conjugate-vaccine modalities. Effective chemistry has been developed for the synthesis of the conjugation-ready ligand as well as the connection of it to the peptide antigen. Different linker systems and connection modes to a model peptide were explored, and in vitro evaluation of the conjugates showed them to be powerful immune-activating agents, significantly more effective than the separate components. Mounting the CRX-527 ligand at the N-terminus of the model peptide antigen delivered a vaccine modality that proved to be potent in activation of dendritic cells, in facilitating antigen presentation, and in initiating specific CD8+ T-cell-mediated killing of antigen-loaded target cells in vivo. Synthetic TLR4 ligands thus show great promise in potentiating the conjugate vaccine platform for application in cancer vaccination.

Chirality of TLR-2 ligand Pam3CysSK4 in fully synthetic peptide conjugates critically influences the induction of specific CD8+ T-cells.

Covalent conjugation of synthetic Toll-like receptor ligands (TLR-L) to synthetic antigenic peptides provides well-defined constructs that have significantly improved capacity to induce efficient priming of CD8(+) T lymphocytes in vivo. We have recently explored the cellular mechanisms underlying the efficient induction of a CD8(+) cytotoxic T lymphocyte response by such synthetic model vaccines [Khan, S., Bijker, M.S., Weterings, J.J., Tanke, H.J., Adema, G.J., van, H.T., Drijfhout, J.W., Melief, C.J., Overkleeft, H.S., van der Marel, G.A., Filippov, D.V., van der Burg, S.H., Ossendorp, F., 2007. Distinct uptake mechanisms but similar intracellular processing of two different toll-like receptor ligand-peptide conjugates in dendritic cells. J. Biol. Chem. 282, 21145-21159.]. In the current study we have investigated the behaviour of two diastereomers of the TLR-2 ligand Pam(3)CSK(4) (Pam) derivatives, namely the R- and S-epimers at C-2 of the glycerol moiety. Other studies have shown that the Pam(3)Cys based lipopeptides of R-configuration (Pam(R)) in the glycerol moiety enhanced macrophage and B-cell activation compared to those with S-configuration (Pam(S)). Here we report that Pam(R)-conjugates lead to better activation of dendritic cells than the Pam(S)-conjugates as judged by higher IL-12 secretion, upregulation of relevant markers for dendritic cell maturation. In contrast both epimers were internalized equally efficient in a clathrin-dependent manner indicating no qualitative difference in the uptake of the two stereoisomeric Pam-conjugates. We conclude that the enhanced DC activation is due to enhanced TLR-2 triggering by the Pam(R)-conjugate in contrast to the Pam(S)-conjugate. Importantly, induction of specific CD8(+) T-cells was significantly higher in mice injected with the Pam(R)-conjugates compared to mice injected with the Pam(S)-conjugate. In summary we show that the favourable effects of the Pam(R)-configuration of TLR-2 ligand can be attributed to direct effects on dendritic cells resulting in enhancement of CD8(+) T-cell responses.