In vitro Characterization of Enhanced Human Immune Responses by GM-CSF Encoding HSV-1-Induced Melanoma Cells

Maike Delic; Veronika Boeswald; Katrin Goepfert; Petra Pabst; Markus Moehler

doi:10.2147/OTT.S350136

In vitro Characterization of Enhanced Human Immune Responses by GM-CSF Encoding HSV-1-Induced Melanoma Cells

Onco Targets Ther. 2022 Oct 27:15:1291-1307. doi: 10.2147/OTT.S350136. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Maike Delic¹, Veronika Boeswald¹, Katrin Goepfert¹, Petra Pabst¹, Markus Moehler¹

Affiliation

¹ University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 1st Department of Internal Medicine, Mainz, Germany.

Abstract

Purpose: We studied the innate and adaptive immune response against melanoma cells after JS-1 (wild-type herpes simplex virus 1, wt HSV-1) or Talimogene laherparepvec (T-VEC) infection and evaluated the antitumoral efficacy in human melanoma cells. We analyzed the putative synergistic biological and immunological effects of JS-1 or T-VEC combined with cytostatic drugs in human tumor and immune cells. T-VEC is a genetically modified strain of HSV-1. Genetic modifications (insertion of the granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) gene) were made to attenuate the virus and increase selectivity for cancer cells. In addition to the direct oncolytic effect, we investigated the immune stimulatory effects of T-VEC by comparing it with JS-1. JS-1 is identical T-VEC except for the inserted GM-CSF gene.

Materials and methods: We analyzed the effects of T-VEC and JS-1 with cytostatic drugs in human tumor-immune cell coculture experiments. After coculture, the surface markers CD80, CD83 and CD86 were measured by fluorescence-activated cell sorting and the cytokines, interleukin (IL)-2, IL-6, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α and GM-CSF, by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. Furthermore, we analyzed the potential of the viruses to induce T cell activation, measured on the basis of CD4, CD8 and CD69. Analysis of these markers and cytokines allows for conclusions to be drawn concerning the maturation of dendritic cells (DCs) and the immunostimulatory effects of the treatment.

Results: We documented increased activation of human cytotoxic T lymphocytes after infection by both HSV-1 strains and treatment with cytostatic drugs without significant differences between T-VEC and JS-1.

Conclusion: We demonstrated an immune response as a result of infection with both viruses, but T-VEC was in vitro not stronger than JS-1. The immunostimulatory effects of the viruses could be partially increased by chemotherapy, providing a rationale for future preclinical studies designed to explore T-VEC in combined regimens.

Keywords: T-VEC; dendritic cells; immunostimulatory effect; immunotherapy; oncolytic virotherapy.