Prospect and progress of personalized peptide vaccinations for advanced cancers

ABSTRACT

Introduction: The field of cancer immunotherapy has made dramatic progress in the past 20 years, in part due to the identification of numerous tumor-associated antigens (TAAs). We have developed a novel immunotherapeutic approach called the personalized peptide vaccine (PPV), in which a maximum of four human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-matched vaccine peptides are selected based on the pre-existing host immunity before vaccination.

Areas covered: This review describes recent progress in the use of PPV for various types of advanced cancer.

Expert opinion: Although various approaches for therapeutic cancer immunotherapies, including peptide-based vaccines, have been developed and clinically examined, the diverse and heterogeneous characteristics of tumor cells and host immunity seem to limit their therapeutic efficacy. Selection of suitable peptide vaccines for individual patients based on the pre-existing host immunity before vaccination could resolve this limitation and could be a rational approach for developing effective cancer vaccines.

KEYWORDS:

• Advanced cancer
• biomarker
• cancer immunotherapy
• cancer vaccine
• clinical trial
• peptide epitope
• personalized peptide vaccine

Article highlights

• Personalized selection of vaccine antigens based on the pre-existing antigen-specific immunity in individual patients is crucial.

• Attention to the pre-existing immune responses to vaccine antigens before vaccination in each patient increases the clinical benefits from cancer vaccines.

• Multiple vaccine antigens are selected to prevent the escape of cancer cells from host immune surveillance.

• Detailed procedures of PPV and 31 HLA class I-restricted peptide epitopes currently employed for PPV are introduced.

• Potential biomarkers of PPV are introduced in advanced cancer patients.

Declaration of interest

This paper was supported in part by the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED), by the Regional Innovation Cluster Program of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan, and by a grant from the Sendai Kousei Hospital. A Yamada is a board member of the Green Peptide Company Ltd., and K Itoh received research funding from Taiho Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.