A tetravalent nanovaccine that inhibits growth of HPV-associated head and neck carcinoma via dendritic and T cell activation

Romano Josi; Daniel E Speiser; Simone de Brot; Anne-Cathrine Vogt; Eva M Sevick-Muraca; Genrich V Tolstonog; Martin F Bachmann; Mona O Mohsen

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2024.109439

A tetravalent nanovaccine that inhibits growth of HPV-associated head and neck carcinoma via dendritic and T cell activation

iScience. 2024 Mar 6;27(4):109439. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.109439. eCollection 2024 Apr 19.

Authors

Romano Josi^{1

2

3}, Daniel E Speiser⁴, Simone de Brot⁵, Anne-Cathrine Vogt^{1

2

3}, Eva M Sevick-Muraca⁶, Genrich V Tolstonog^{7

8}, Martin F Bachmann^{1

2

9}, Mona O Mohsen^{1

2

10}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Rheumatology and Immunology, University Hospital of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
² Department of BioMedical Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
³ Graduate School for Cellular and Biomedical Sciences (GCB), Bern, Switzerland.
⁴ Department of Oncology, Lausanne University Hospital and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
⁵ COMPATH, Institute of Animal Pathology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
⁶ Center for Molecular Imaging, Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine, McGovern Medical School, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX, USA.
⁷ Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Lausanne University Hospital and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
⁸ Agora Cancer Research Centre, Lausanne, Switzerland.
⁹ Nuffield Department of Medicine, The Henry Welcome Building for Molecular Physiology, The Jenner Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
¹⁰ Tajarub Research & Development, Doha, State of Qatar.

Abstract

The global incidence of human papillomavirus (HPV) associated head and neck carcinoma is on the rise, in response to this a tetravalent therapeutic vaccine named Qβ-HPVag was developed. This vaccine, utilizing virus-like particles (VLPs) loaded with toll-like receptor ligands and chemically coupled to four HPV16-derived peptides, demonstrated strong anti-tumor effects in a murine head and neck cancer model. Qβ-HPVag impeded tumor progression, increased infiltration of HPV-specific T cells, and significantly improved survival. The vaccine`s efficacy was associated with immune repolarization in the tumor microenvironment, characterized by expanded activated dendritic cell subsets (cDC1, cDC2, DC3). Notably, mice responding to treatment exhibited a higher percentage of migratory DC3 cells expressing CCR7. These findings suggest promising prospects for optimized VLP-based vaccines in treating HPV-associated head and neck cancer.

Keywords: Cancer; Immunology; Virology.

Grants and funding

R01 CA276513/CA/NCI NIH HHS/United States