Prime-Target neoantigen vaccination unleashes unprecedented T cell immunity within “cold” immunosuppressive tumors

ABSTRACT “Cold” immunosuppressive solid tumors are hard-to-treat cancers that are non-responsive to immunotherapies. Their immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME) excludes and inhibits T cells and thereby hampers the therapeutic efficacy of cancer vaccines and immune checkpoint blockade. To overcome this, we employed a “Prime-Target” (P/T) neoantigen vaccination strategy that combines subcutaneous (SQ) and intra-tumor (IT) neopeptide vaccinations to first prime potent systemic neoantigen-specific T cell immunity and then trigger intratumoral T cell recruitment. Using immunotherapy non-responsive murine tumor models with pronounced immunosuppressive TMEs, we demonstrate that P/T neopeptide vaccination resulted in extraordinary tumor control and TME remodeling. P/T vaccination elicited strong systemic anti-tumor responses as well as potent and rapid recruitment of clonal CD4 + Th1 and non-exhausted CD8 + T cells into tumors that carried novel T cell receptors (TCR) and were vaccine neopeptide-specific. Concurrently, P/T vaccination reshaped the TME by decreasing suppressive Treg and M2 macrophages, and dramatically increasing the ratio of effector T cells to Treg and M2 macrophages. Vaccination-induced tumor control was neopeptide-dependent and required concurrent IT administration of both neopeptides and adjuvants. Our study highlights P/T neoantigen vaccination as a promising strategy to overcome T cell exclusion within “cold” immunosuppressive solid tumors and thereby unleash unprecedented anti-tumor immunity.